In-situ growth of 3D hierarchical γ-FeOOH/Ni3S2 heterostructure as high performance electrocatalyst for overall water splitting

Yutong Liu; Meng Ding; Yuhang Tian; Gang Zhao; Jinzhao Huang; Xijin Xu

doi:10.1016/j.jcis.2023.02.025

In-situ growth of 3D hierarchical γ-FeOOH/Ni₃S₂ heterostructure as high performance electrocatalyst for overall water splitting

J Colloid Interface Sci. 2023 Jun:639:24-32. doi: 10.1016/j.jcis.2023.02.025. Epub 2023 Feb 8.

Authors

Yutong Liu¹, Meng Ding², Yuhang Tian¹, Gang Zhao¹, Jinzhao Huang¹, Xijin Xu³

Affiliations

¹ School of Physics and Technology, University of Jinan, 336 West Road of Nan Xinzhuang, Jinan 250022, People's Republic of China.
² School of Physics and Technology, University of Jinan, 336 West Road of Nan Xinzhuang, Jinan 250022, People's Republic of China. Electronic address: sps_dingm@ujn.edu.cn.
³ School of Physics and Technology, University of Jinan, 336 West Road of Nan Xinzhuang, Jinan 250022, People's Republic of China. Electronic address: sps_xuxj@ujn.edu.cn.

PMID: 36804790
DOI: 10.1016/j.jcis.2023.02.025

Abstract

Obtaining efficient, stable, and low-cost electrocatalysts is the key to realizing large-scale water splitting. In this work, three-dimensional (3D) hierarchical γ-iron oxyhydroxide (γ-FeOOH)/Ni₃S₂ electrocatalyst on Ni foam is constructed for electrochemical overall water splitting. The 3D γ-FeOOH/Ni₃S₂ heterostructure can effectively enhance active sites and charge transfer capability, also the heterostructure can benefit electronic effect at the interfaces and synergistic effect of multiple components. Therefore, the γ-FeOOH/Ni₃S₂ exhibits excellent electrocatalytic activity with low overpotentials of 279 mV at 50 mA⋅cm^-2 for oxygen evolution reaction and 92 mV at 10 mA⋅cm^-2 for hydrogen evolution reaction, respectively. In addition, only a potential of 1.66 V is needed to attain 10 mA⋅cm^-2 for the overall water splitting. In particular, the γ-FeOOH/Ni₃S₂ exhibits long-term stability for 120 h at 10 mA⋅cm^-2 without significant degradation. This work provides a valuable idea for obtaining low-cost and high performance bifunctional electrocatalysts for water splitting.

Keywords: Heterostructure; Hydrogen evolution reaction; Nanosheets; Overall water splitting; Oxygen evolution reaction.