Developing high-efficiency and low-cost oxygen-evolving electrodes in anion exchange membrane (AEM) water electrolysis technology is one of the major challenges. Herein, it is demonstrated that the surface corrosion of a conventional Ni foam electrode in the presence of Fe3+ and V3+ cations can transform it into an electrode with a high catalytic performance for oxygen evolution reaction (OER). The corroded electrode consists of a ternary NiFeV layered double hydroxide (LDH) nanosheet array supported on the Ni foam surface. This NiFeV LDH electrode achieves an OER current density of 100 mA cm-2 at an overpotential of 272 mV in 1 m KOH, outperforming the IrO2 catalyst by 180 mV. Density functional theory calculations reveal that the unique structure and the presence of vanadium in NiFeV LDH play a key role in achieving improved OER activity. When coupled with a commercial Pt/C cathode catalyst, the resulting AEM water electrolyzer achieves a cell current density as high as 2.1 A cm-2 at a voltage of only 1.8 Vcell in 1 m KOH, which is similar to the performance of the proton exchange membrane water electrolyzer obtained from the IrO2 and Pt/C catalysts pair.
Keywords: anion exchange membrane water electrolyzers; electrocatalysts; oxygen evolution reaction; transition metals.
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