Biomimicry-inspired fish scale-like Ni3N/FeNi3N/NF superhydrophilic/superaerophobic nanoarrays displaying high electrocatalytic performance

Yucheng Dong; Yutai Wu; Xuyun Wang; Hui Wang; Jianwei Ren; Peng Wang; Lei Pan; Guoqiang Wang; Rongfang Wang

doi:10.1039/d2nr05911h

Biomimicry-inspired fish scale-like Ni₃N/FeNi₃N/NF superhydrophilic/superaerophobic nanoarrays displaying high electrocatalytic performance

Nanoscale. 2023 Jan 27;15(4):1813-1823. doi: 10.1039/d2nr05911h.

Authors

Yucheng Dong¹, Yutai Wu¹, Xuyun Wang¹, Hui Wang¹, Jianwei Ren², Peng Wang³, Lei Pan³, Guoqiang Wang³, Rongfang Wang¹

Affiliations

¹ State Key Laboratory Base for Eco-Chemical Engineering, College of Chemical Engineering, Qingdao University of Science and Technology, Qingdao, 266042, China. wangxy@qust.edu.cn.
² Department of Mechanical Engineering Science, University of Johannesburg, Cnr Kingsway and University Roads, Auckland Park, 2092, Johannesburg, South Africa. jren@uj.ac.za.
³ Shandong Hydrogen Energy Co., Ltd, Weifang, 261000, China.

PMID: 36602118
DOI: 10.1039/d2nr05911h

Abstract

The mass transfer efficiency and structural stability of the electrode are critical for industrialized water electrolysis operations. Herein, the biomimicry-inspired design of Ni₃N/FeNi₃N/NF nanoarrays with a fish scale-like structure, which endowed the Ni₃N/FeNi₃N/NF nanoarrays with rapid infiltration of aqueous solution within 60 ms and 169° bubble contact angle, is demonstrated. The optimal Ni₃N/FeNi₃N/NF sample displayed catalytic activity with hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) overpotentials of only 48 mV at 10 mA cm^-2 and 102 mV at 100 mA cm^-2. Similarly, the overpotential of the anodic-coupled urea oxidation reaction (UOR) was only 1.3 V at 10 mA cm^-2 and 1.35 V at 100 mA cm^-2. Besides, the small impact resulting from the rapid bubble extraction within the Ni₃N/FeNi₃N/NF nanoarrays ensured excellent HER cycling stability over 100 h at a current density of 50 mA cm^-2. The further scale-up experiment suggests the industrialization prospects of the prepared Ni₃N/FeNi₃N/NF electrocatalysts.