Rational design of bifunctional hydroxide/sulfide heterostructured catalyst for efficient electrochemical seawater splitting

Yang Yang; Meihong Lin; Yue Wu; Ruotong Chen; Donggang Guo; Lu Liu

doi:10.1016/j.jcis.2023.05.090

Rational design of bifunctional hydroxide/sulfide heterostructured catalyst for efficient electrochemical seawater splitting

J Colloid Interface Sci. 2023 Oct:647:510-518. doi: 10.1016/j.jcis.2023.05.090. Epub 2023 May 18.

Authors

Yang Yang¹, Meihong Lin¹, Yue Wu¹, Ruotong Chen¹, Donggang Guo², Lu Liu³

Affiliations

¹ Tianjin Key Laboratory of Environmental Remediation and Pollution Control, College of Environmental Science and Engineering, Nankai University, Tianjin 300350, China.
² Shanxi Laboratory for Yellow River, College of Environment and Resource, Shanxi University, 92, Wucheng Rd., Shanxi 030006, China. Electronic address: gdghjkx@126.com.
³ Tianjin Key Laboratory of Environmental Remediation and Pollution Control, College of Environmental Science and Engineering, Nankai University, Tianjin 300350, China. Electronic address: liul@nankai.edu.cn.

PMID: 37211452
DOI: 10.1016/j.jcis.2023.05.090

Abstract

Heterostructure engineering is one of the most promising strategies for efficient water splitting by electrocatalysts. However, it remains challenging to design heterostructured catalysts to achieve the desired goals in both hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) and oxygen evolution reaction (OER) in seawater splitting. Here, particulate heterostructures of FeCoNi hydroxide/sulfide supported on nickel foams were prepared by hydrothermal methods to achieve a high-performance bifunctional catalyst. The synthesized FeCoNi hydroxide/sulfide exhibited excellent electrocatalytic performance, requiring an overpotential of 195 mV for OER and 76 mV for HER to achieve a current density of 10 mA cm^-2 while showing excellent stability. The catalyst maintains its excellent performance even in artificial or natural seawater with high salinity, which is a harsh environment. When applied directly to a water splitting system, the catalyst achieves a current density of 10 mA cm^-2 at only 1.5 V (1.57 V in alkaline seawater). The FeCoNi hydroxide/sulfide heterostructure is an excellent electrocatalytic bifunctional catalyst due to compositional modulation, systematic charge transfer optimization, improved intermediates adsorption, and increased electrocatalytic active sites and the synergistic effect of the heterostructure.

Keywords: Electrocatalysis; Heterostructure engineering; Hydrogen evolution reaction; Hydroxides; Oxygen evolution reaction; Seawater splitting; Sulfides.