In-situ surface reconstruction of single-crystal (NiFe)3Se4 nano-pyramid arrays for efficient oxygen evolution

Jianwei Zhao; Fangqing Wang; Xuan Lu; Tianhao Lv; Ying Li; Qiuyan Hao; Limin Liang; Hui Liu

doi:10.1016/j.jcis.2023.03.176

In-situ surface reconstruction of single-crystal (NiFe)₃Se₄ nano-pyramid arrays for efficient oxygen evolution

J Colloid Interface Sci. 2023 Jul 15:642:532-539. doi: 10.1016/j.jcis.2023.03.176. Epub 2023 Mar 31.

Authors

Jianwei Zhao¹, Fangqing Wang¹, Xuan Lu¹, Tianhao Lv¹, Ying Li¹, Qiuyan Hao¹, Limin Liang², Hui Liu³

Affiliations

¹ Key Laboratory of Special Functional Materials for Ecological Environment and Information (Ministry of Education), Hebei University of Technology, Tianjin 300130, China; School of Materials Science and Engineering, Hebei University of Technology, Tianjin 300401, China.
² School of Materials Science and Engineering, Hebei University of Technology, Tianjin 300401, China. Electronic address: lianglimin@hebut.edu.cn.
³ Key Laboratory of Special Functional Materials for Ecological Environment and Information (Ministry of Education), Hebei University of Technology, Tianjin 300130, China; School of Materials Science and Engineering, Hebei University of Technology, Tianjin 300401, China. Electronic address: liuhuihebut@163.com.

PMID: 37028160
DOI: 10.1016/j.jcis.2023.03.176

Abstract

Transition metal-based selenides (TMSe) are considered as efficient pre-electrocatalysts towards oxygen evolution reaction (OER). However, the key factor in determining the surface reconstruction of TMSe under OER condition is not yet clear. Herein, we uncover that the crystallinity of TMSe will obviously impact the conversion degree from TMSe to transition metal oxyhydroxides (TMOOH) during OER. A novel single-crystal (NiFe)₃Se₄ nano-pyramid array grown on NiFe foam is fabricated by a facile one-step polyol process, which exhibits an excellent OER activity and stability, only requiring 170 mV to reach a current density of 10 mA cm^-2 and can sustain for more than 300 h. In situ Raman spectrum studies reveals that the single-crystal (NiFe)₃Se₄ is partially oxidized on its surface during OER, generating a dense heterostructure of (NiFe)OOH/(NiFe)₃Se₄. Benefiting from the in situ formed heterointerface, the adsorption of OER intermediates on Ni active sites calculated by density functional theory (DFT) analysis is optimized, leading to the reduced energy barrier, which accounts for the enhanced intrinsic activity. This work not only reports a novel single-crystal (NiFe)₃Se₄ nano-pyramid array electrocatalyst with high-efficient OER performance, but also gains a deep insight into the role of the crystallinity of TMSe on the surface reconstruction during OER.

Keywords: Nano-pyramid arrays; Nickel iron selenide; Oxygen evolution; Single-crystal; Surface reconstruction.