Serpentine Ni3 Ge2 O5 (OH)4 Nanosheets with Tailored Layers and Size for Efficient Oxygen Evolution Reactions

Ning Zhang; Baopeng Yang; Yuanqing He; Yulu He; Xiaohe Liu; Min Liu; Guoyong Song; Gen Chen; Anqiang Pan; Shuquan Liang; Renzhi Ma; Shishir Venkatesh; Vellaisamy A L Roy

doi:10.1002/smll.201803015

Serpentine Ni₃ Ge₂ O₅ (OH)₄ Nanosheets with Tailored Layers and Size for Efficient Oxygen Evolution Reactions

Small. 2018 Nov;14(48):e1803015. doi: 10.1002/smll.201803015. Epub 2018 Oct 16.

Authors

Ning Zhang¹, Baopeng Yang¹, Yuanqing He¹, Yulu He¹, Xiaohe Liu¹, Min Liu², Guoyong Song³, Gen Chen¹, Anqiang Pan¹, Shuquan Liang¹, Renzhi Ma⁴, Shishir Venkatesh⁵, Vellaisamy A L Roy⁵

Affiliations

¹ School of Materials Science and Engineering, Central South University, Changsha, Hunan, 410083, China.
² School of Physical Science and Electronics, Central South University, Changsha, Hunan, 410083, China.
³ Beijing Key Laboratory of Lignocellulosic Chemistry, Beijing Forestry University, Beijing, 100083, China.
⁴ International Center for Materials Nanoarchitectonics (MANA), National Institute for Materials Science (NIMS), 1-1 Namiki, Tsukuba, Ibaraki, 305-0044, Japan.
⁵ Department of Materials Science & Engineering and State Key Laboratory of Millimeter Waves, City University of Hong Kong, Tat Chee Avenue, Kowloon, Hong Kong SAR, 999077, China.

PMID: 30328265
DOI: 10.1002/smll.201803015

Abstract

Layered serpentine Ni₃ Ge₂ O₅ (OH)₄ is compositionally active and structurally favorable for adsorption and diffusion of reactants in oxygen evolution reactions (OER). However, one of the major problems for these materials is limited active sites and low efficiency for OER. In this regard, a new catalyst consisting of layered serpentine Ni₃ Ge₂ O₅ (OH)₄ nanosheets is introduced via a controlled one-step synthetic process where the morphology, size, and layers are well tailored. The theoretical calculations indicate that decreased layers and increased exposure of (100) facets in serpentine Ni₃ Ge₂ O₅ (OH)₄ lead to much lower Gibbs free energy in adsorption of reactive intermediates. Experimentally, it is found that the reduction in number of layers with minimized particle size exhibits plenty of highly surface-active sites of (100) facets and demonstrates a much enhanced performance in OER than the corresponding multilayered nanosheets. Such a strategy of tailoring active sites of serpentine Ni₃ Ge₂ O₅ (OH)₄ nanosheets offers an effective method to design highly efficient electrocatalysts.

Keywords: Ni3Ge2O5(OH)4; electrocatalyst; nanosheet; oxygen evolution reaction; serpentine.

Abstract

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