Exploring of new catalyst activation principle holds a key to unlock catalytic powers of cheap and earth-abundant materials for large-scale applications. In this regard, the vacancy defects have been proven to be effective to initiate catalytic active sites and endow high electrocatalytic activities. However, such electrocatalytically active defects reported to date have been mostly formed by anion vacancies. Herein, it is demonstrated for the first time that iron cation vacancies induce superb water splitting bifunctionality in alkaline media. A simple wet-chemistry method is developed to grow ultrathin feroxyhyte (δ-FeOOH) nanosheets with rich Fe vacancies on Ni foam substrate. The theoretical and experimental results confirm that, in contrast to anion vacancies, the formation of rich second neighboring Fe to Fe vacancies in δ-FeOOH nanosheets can create catalytic active centers for both hydrogen and oxygen evolution reactions. The atomic level insight into the new catalyst activation principle based on metal vacancies is adaptable for developing other transition metal electrocatalysts, including Fe-based ones.
Keywords: atomic level insight; catalyst activation principle; iron cation vacancies; ultrathin feroxyhyte nanosheets; water splitting bifunctionality.
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