Elemental selenium enables enhanced water oxidation electrocatalysis of NiFe layered double hydroxides

Shuo Duan; Shaoqing Chen; Tanyuan Wang; Shenzhou Li; Jianyun Liu; Jiashun Liang; Haiqin Xie; Jiantao Han; Shuhong Jiao; Ruiguo Cao; Hsing-Lin Wang; Qing Li

doi:10.1039/c9nr06169j

Elemental selenium enables enhanced water oxidation electrocatalysis of NiFe layered double hydroxides

Nanoscale. 2019 Oct 7;11(37):17376-17383. doi: 10.1039/c9nr06169j. Epub 2019 Sep 16.

Authors

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. qing_li@hust.edu.cn wangty@hust.edu.cn.
² Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen, Guangdong 518055, China.
³ Key Laboratory of Materials for Energy Conversion Chinese Academy of Science (CAS), Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230026, China.

PMID: 31524918
DOI: 10.1039/c9nr06169j

Abstract

The oxygen evolution reaction (OER) is involved in various renewable energy systems, such as water-splitting, metal-air batteries and CO₂ electroreduction. Ni-Fe layered double hydroxides (LDHs) have been reported as promising OER electrocatalysts in alkaline electrolytes. Herein, we demonstrate that the introduction of elemental selenium (Se) with an optimized phase composition, i.e., monoclinic (m-) or trigonal (t-) Se, could effectively tailor the OER activity of NiFe-LDH. Compared to t-Se doped NiFe-LDH, the presence of hybrid m/t-Se could effectively tune the electronic states of Ni-O and Fe-O sites, promote the generation of OER-active γ-NiOOH, and inhibit Fe-migration during the OER process, thus enhancing the OER performance. The optimized Ni_0.8Fe_0.2-m/t-Se_0.02-LDH catalyst exhibits extraordinarily high OER activity, with an overpotential of 200 mV at 10 mA cm^-2, which is superior to those of IrO₂ and most of the reported Se-based OER catalysts. The Ni_0.8Fe_0.2-m/t-Se_0.02-LDH catalyst is further implemented as an anode for overall water splitting and demonstrates a low cell voltage of 1.50 V to achieve 10 mA cm^-2.