Spinel oxides with tunable chemical compositions have emerged as versatile electrocatalysts, however their performance is greatly limited by small surface area and low electron conductivity. Here, ultrathin high-entropy Fe-based spinel oxides nanosheets are rationally designed (i.e., (Co0.2Ni0.2Zn0.2Mg0.2Cu0.2)Fe2O4; denotes A5Fe2O4) in thickness of ≈4.3 nm with large surface area and highly exposed active sites via a modified sol-gel method. Theoretic and experimental results confirm that the bandgap of A5Fe2O4 nanosheets is significantly smaller than that of ordinary Fe-based spinel oxides, realizing the transformation of binary spinel oxide from semiconductors to metalloids. As a result, such A5Fe2O4 nanosheets manifest excellent performance for the nitrate reduction reaction (NO3 -RR) to ammonia (NH3), with a NH3 yield rate of ≈2.1 mmol h-1 cm-2 at -0.5 V versus Reversible hydrogen electrode, outperforming other spinel-based electrocatalysts. Systematic mechanism investigations reveal that the NO3 -RR is mainly occurred on Fe sites, and introducing high-entropy compositions in tetrahedral sites regulates the adsorption strength of N and O-related intermediates on Fe for boosting the NO3 -RR. The above findings offer a high-entropy platform to regulate the bandgap and enhance the electrocatalytic performance of spinel oxides.
Keywords: bandgap; electron conductivity; high‐entropy nanomaterials; nitrate reduction reaction; spinel oxides‐based electrocatalysts.
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