Enhancing Electrocatalytic Water Oxidation of NiFe-LDH Nanosheets via Bismuth-Induced Electronic Structure Engineering

Haitao Xu; Ting Guo; Xiaoyun Lei; Shaobo Guo; Quan Liu; Jiufu Lu; Tianlei Zhang

doi:10.1021/acsami.3c15403

Enhancing Electrocatalytic Water Oxidation of NiFe-LDH Nanosheets via Bismuth-Induced Electronic Structure Engineering

ACS Appl Mater Interfaces. 2023 Dec 20;15(50):58784-58793. doi: 10.1021/acsami.3c15403. Epub 2023 Dec 12.

Authors

Haitao Xu¹, Ting Guo¹, Xiaoyun Lei¹, Shaobo Guo¹, Quan Liu¹, Jiufu Lu¹, Tianlei Zhang¹

Affiliation

¹ Shaanxi Key Laboratory of Catalysis, School of Chemical & Environment Sciences, Shaanxi University of Technology, Hanzhong 723001, China.

PMID: 38084743
DOI: 10.1021/acsami.3c15403

Abstract

The design and synthesis of high-efficiency electrocatalysts are of great practical significance in electrocatalytic water splitting, specifically in accelerating the slow oxygen evolution reaction (OER). Herein, a self-supported bismuth-doped NiFe layered double hydroxide (LDH) nanosheet array for water splitting was successfully constructed on nickel foam by a one-step hydrothermal strategy. Benefiting from the abundant active sites of two-dimensional nanosheets and electronic effect of Bi-doped NiFe LDH, the optimal Bi_0.2NiFe LDH electrocatalyst exhibits excellent OER performance in basic media. It only requires an overpotential of 255 mV to drive 50 mA cm^-2 and a low Tafel slope of 57.49 mV dec^-1. The calculation of density functional theory (DFT) further shows that the incorporation of Bi into NiFe LDH could obviously overcome the step of H₂O adsorption during OER progress. This work provides a simple and effective strategy for improving the electrocatalytic performance of NiFe LDHs, which is of great practical significance.

Keywords: NiFe layered double hydroxides; bismuth; doping; electrocatalysis; electronic structure.