Amorphous-crystalline heterostructures enable energy-level matching of cobalt sulfide/nickel iron layered double hydroxide for efficient oxygen evolution reaction

Shiqi Zang; Yan Hou; Jiuli Chang; Fang Xu; Dapeng Wu; Kai Jiang; Zhiyong Gao

doi:10.1016/j.jcis.2023.11.124

Amorphous-crystalline heterostructures enable energy-level matching of cobalt sulfide/nickel iron layered double hydroxide for efficient oxygen evolution reaction

J Colloid Interface Sci. 2024 Feb 15:656:485-494. doi: 10.1016/j.jcis.2023.11.124. Epub 2023 Nov 22.

Authors

Shiqi Zang¹, Yan Hou², Jiuli Chang³, Fang Xu³, Dapeng Wu¹, Kai Jiang⁴, Zhiyong Gao⁵

Affiliations

¹ Key Laboratory of Yellow River and Huai River Water Environment and Pollution Control, Ministry of Education, Henan Key Laboratory for Environment Pollution Control, International Joint Laboratory on Key Techniques in Water Treatment, Henan Province, School of Environment, Henan Normal University, Henan Xinxiang 453007, PR China.
² Key Laboratory of Yellow River and Huai River Water Environment and Pollution Control, Ministry of Education, Henan Key Laboratory for Environment Pollution Control, International Joint Laboratory on Key Techniques in Water Treatment, Henan Province, School of Environment, Henan Normal University, Henan Xinxiang 453007, PR China; School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Collaborative Innovation Center of Henan Province for Green Manufacturing of Fine Chemicals, Key Laboratory of Green Chemical Media and Reactions, Ministry of Education, Henan Normal University, Henan Xinxiang 453007, PR China. Electronic address: houyan@htu.edu.cn.
³ School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Collaborative Innovation Center of Henan Province for Green Manufacturing of Fine Chemicals, Key Laboratory of Green Chemical Media and Reactions, Ministry of Education, Henan Normal University, Henan Xinxiang 453007, PR China.
⁴ Key Laboratory of Yellow River and Huai River Water Environment and Pollution Control, Ministry of Education, Henan Key Laboratory for Environment Pollution Control, International Joint Laboratory on Key Techniques in Water Treatment, Henan Province, School of Environment, Henan Normal University, Henan Xinxiang 453007, PR China. Electronic address: jk@htu.edu.cn.
⁵ School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Collaborative Innovation Center of Henan Province for Green Manufacturing of Fine Chemicals, Key Laboratory of Green Chemical Media and Reactions, Ministry of Education, Henan Normal University, Henan Xinxiang 453007, PR China. Electronic address: gaozhiyong@htu.edu.cn.

PMID: 38007940
DOI: 10.1016/j.jcis.2023.11.124

Abstract

Interface engineering of heterostructures has emerged as a promising approach to enhance the catalytic activity of nonprecious electrocatalysts. Herein, a novel amorphous cobalt sulfide-crystalline nickel iron layered double hydroxide (a-CoS@NiFe-LDH) hybrid material is presented for application as an electrocatalyst for oxygen evolution reaction (OER). Benefitting from the well-matched energy level structures, the a-CoS@NiFe-LDH catalyst delivers a low overpotential of 221 ± 14 mV at an OER current density of 20 mA cm^-2 and a small Tafel slope of 83.1 mV dec^-1, showing good OER properties. First-principle computations reveal that the electronic interaction between amorphous cobalt sulfide (a-CoS) and crystalline nickel iron layered double hydroxide (NiFe-LDH) components within a-CoS@NiFe-LDH promotes the adsorbate evolution mechanism and reduces the adsorption energies for oxygen intermediates, thereby enhancing the activity and stability for OER. This work opens up a new avenue to enhance the OER catalytic efficiency via the construction of amorphous-crystalline heterostructures.

Keywords: Amorphous-crystalline phase; Catalytic mechanism; Heterojunction; Oxygen evolution reaction; Water electrolysis.