In-situ construction of cation vacancies in amphoteric-metallic element-doped NiFe-LDH as ultrastable and efficient alkaline hydrogen evolution electrocatalysts at 1000 mA cm-2

Qinhao Liu; Kaisheng Chen; Min Wang; Hao Fan; Zihao Yan; Xiwen Du; Yongjun Chen

doi:10.1016/j.jcis.2024.02.184

In-situ construction of cation vacancies in amphoteric-metallic element-doped NiFe-LDH as ultrastable and efficient alkaline hydrogen evolution electrocatalysts at 1000 mA cm^-2

J Colloid Interface Sci. 2024 Jun:663:624-631. doi: 10.1016/j.jcis.2024.02.184. Epub 2024 Feb 27.

Authors

Qinhao Liu¹, Kaisheng Chen¹, Min Wang², Hao Fan¹, Zihao Yan¹, Xiwen Du³, Yongjun Chen⁴

Affiliations

¹ School of Materials Science and Engineering, Hainan University, Haikou 570228, China.
² School of Materials Science and Engineering, Hainan University, Haikou 570228, China. Electronic address: wangmin6029@126.com.
³ Institute of New Energy Materials, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Tianjin University, Tianjin 300072, China. Electronic address: xwdu@tju.edu.cn.
⁴ School of Materials Science and Engineering, Hainan University, Haikou 570228, China. Electronic address: yongchen@hainanu.edu.cn.

PMID: 38430832
DOI: 10.1016/j.jcis.2024.02.184

Abstract

Developing efficient and stable electrocatalysts at affordable costs is very important for large-scale production of green hydrogen. In this study, unique amphoteric metallic element-doped NiFe-LDH nanosheet arrays (NiFeCd-LDH, NiFeZn-LDH and NiFeAl-LDH) using as high-performance bifunctional electrocatalysts for hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) and oxygen evolution reaction (OER) were reported, by tuning electronic structure and vacancy engineering. It was found that NiFeCd-LDH possesses the lowest overpotentials of 85 mV and 240 mV (at 10 mA cm^-2) for HER and OER, respectively. Density functional theory (DFT) calculations reveal the synergistic effect of Cd vacancies and Cd doping on improving alkaline HER performance, which promote the achievement of excellent catalytic activity and ultrastable hydrogen production at a large current density of 1000 mA cm^-2 within 250 h. Besides, the overall water splitting performance of the as-prepared NiFeCd-LDH requires only 1.580 V to achieve a current density of 10 mA cm^-2 in alkaline seawater media, underscoring the importance of modifying the electronic properties of LDH for efficient overall water splitting in both alkaline water/seawater environments.

Keywords: Cation vacancies; Cd-doped NiFe LDH; HER; Overall alkaline seawater splitting.