NiFe (Oxy) Hydroxides Derived from NiFe Disulfides as an Efficient Oxygen Evolution Catalyst for Rechargeable Zn-Air Batteries: The Effect of Surface S Residues

Tanyuan Wang; Gyutae Nam; Yue Jin; Xingyu Wang; Pengju Ren; Min Gyu Kim; Jiashun Liang; Xiaodong Wen; Haeseong Jang; Jiantao Han; Yunhui Huang; Qing Li; Jaephil Cho

doi:10.1002/adma.201800757

NiFe (Oxy) Hydroxides Derived from NiFe Disulfides as an Efficient Oxygen Evolution Catalyst for Rechargeable Zn-Air Batteries: The Effect of Surface S Residues

Adv Mater. 2018 Jul;30(27):e1800757. doi: 10.1002/adma.201800757. Epub 2018 May 21.

Authors

Tanyuan Wang¹, Gyutae Nam², Yue Jin³, Xingyu Wang^{4

5}, Pengju Ren⁵, Min Gyu Kim⁶, Jiashun Liang¹, Xiaodong Wen⁵, Haeseong Jang², Jiantao Han¹, Yunhui Huang¹, Qing Li¹, Jaephil Cho²

Affiliations

¹ State Key Laboratory of Material Processing and Die & Mould Technology, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, 430074, China.
² Department of Energy Engineering and School of Energy and Chemical Engineering, Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST), Ulsan, 44919, South Korea.
³ Institute of Apicultural Research, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Science, Beijing, 100093, China.
⁴ College of Chemistry and Molecular Engineering, Peking University, Beijing, 100871, China.
⁵ State Key Laboratory of Coal Conversion, Institute of Coal Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, P.O. Box 165, Taiyuan, Shanxi 030001, P. R. China & Synfuels China, Beijing, 100195, China.
⁶ Beamline Research Division, Pohang Accelerator Laboratory, Pohang University of Science and Technology, Pohang, 790-784, South Korea.

PMID: 29782683
DOI: 10.1002/adma.201800757

Abstract

A facile H₂ O₂ oxidation treatment to tune the properties of metal disulfides for oxygen evolution reaction (OER) activity enhancement is introduced. With this method, the degree of oxidation can be readily controlled and the effect of surface S residues in the resulted metal (oxy)hydroxides for the OER is revealed for the first time. The developed NiFe (oxy)hydroxide catalyst with residual S demonstrates an extraordinarily low OER overpotential of 190 mV at the current density of 10 mA cm^-2 after coupling with carbon nanotubes, and outstanding performance in Zn-air battery tests. Theoretical calculation suggests that the surface S residues can significantly reduce the adsorption free energy difference between O* and OH* intermediates on the Fe sites, which should account for the high OER activity of NiFe (oxy)hydroxide catalysts. This work provides significant insight regarding the effect of surface heteroatom residues in OER electrocatalysis and offers a new strategy to design high-performance and cost-efficient OER catalysts.

Keywords: NiFe hydroxides; Zn-air batteries; energy storage; oxygen evolution reaction; residual S.