Nickel-decorated RuO2 nanocrystals with rich oxygen vacancies for high-efficiency overall water splitting

Xinyu Chen; Jiexi Song; Yifei Xing; Yanqing Qin; Jianbin Lin; Xiao Qu; Bianjing Sun; Shiyu Du; Diwei Shi; Chuntao Chen; Dongping Sun

doi:10.1016/j.jcis.2022.10.061

Nickel-decorated RuO₂ nanocrystals with rich oxygen vacancies for high-efficiency overall water splitting

J Colloid Interface Sci. 2023 Jan 15;630(Pt A):940-950. doi: 10.1016/j.jcis.2022.10.061. Epub 2022 Oct 22.

Authors

Xinyu Chen¹, Jiexi Song², Yifei Xing³, Yanqing Qin², Jianbin Lin¹, Xiao Qu¹, Bianjing Sun¹, Shiyu Du⁴, Diwei Shi⁵, Chuntao Chen⁶, Dongping Sun⁷

Affiliations

¹ Institute of Chemicobiology and Functional Materials, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Nanjing University of Science and Technology, 200 Xiao Ling Wei Street, Nanjing 210094, China.
² MOE Key Laboratory of Materials Physics and Chemistry Under Extraordinary Conditions and Shaanxi Key Laboratory of Condensed Matter Structures and Properties, School of Physical Science and Technology, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xian 710072, China.
³ Key Laboratory of Industrial Ecology and Environmental Engineering (Ministry of Education, China), School of Environmental Science and Technology, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian 116024, China.
⁴ Engineering Laboratory of Nuclear Energy Materials, Ningbo Institute of Industrial Technology, Chinese Academy Sciences, Ningbo 315201, China.
⁵ School of Naval Architecture and Maritime, Zhejiang Ocean University, Zhoushan 316022, China. Electronic address: shidiwei@zjou.edu.cn.
⁶ Institute of Chemicobiology and Functional Materials, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Nanjing University of Science and Technology, 200 Xiao Ling Wei Street, Nanjing 210094, China. Electronic address: chchunt@njust.edu.cn.
⁷ Institute of Chemicobiology and Functional Materials, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Nanjing University of Science and Technology, 200 Xiao Ling Wei Street, Nanjing 210094, China. Electronic address: sundpe301@163.com.

PMID: 36327710
DOI: 10.1016/j.jcis.2022.10.061

Abstract

Designing transition metal-oxide-based bifunctional electrocatalysts with excellent activity and stability for OER/HER to achieve efficient water splitting is of great importance for renewable energy technologies. Herein, a highly efficient bifunctional catalysts with oxygen-rich vacancies of nickel-decorated RuO₂ (NiRuO_2-x) prepared by a unique one-pot glucose-blowing approach were investigated. Remarkably, the NiRuO_2-x catalysts exhibited excellent HER and OER activity at 10 mA cm^-2 in alkaline solution with only a minimum overpotential of 51 mV and 245 mV, respectively. Furthermore, the NiRuO_2-x overall water splitting exhibited an ultra-low voltage of 1.6 V to obtain 10 mA cm^-2 and stability for more than 10 h. XPS measurement and theoretical calculations demonstrated that the introduction of Ni-dopant and oxygen vacancies make the d-band center to lie close to the Fermi energy level, the chemical bonds between the active site and the adsorbed oxygen intermediate state are enhanced, thereby lowering the reaction activation barriers of HER and OER. The assembly of solar-driven alkaline electrolyzers facilitate the application of the NiRuO_2-x bifunctional catalysts.

Keywords: Density functional theory; Nickel-decorated; Overall water splitting; Oxygen vacancies; RuO(2).