Revealing the Dynamics and Roles of Iron Incorporation in Nickel Hydroxide Water Oxidation Catalysts

Kuai, Chunguang; Xi, Cong; Hu, Anyang; Zhang, Yan; Xu, Zhengrui; Nordlund, Dennis; Sun, Cheng-Jun; Cadigan, Christopher A.; Richards, Ryan M.; Li, Luxi; Dong, Cun-Ku; Du, Xi-Wen; Lin, Feng

doi:10.1021/jacs.1c07975

Revealing the Dynamics and Roles of Iron Incorporation in Nickel Hydroxide Water Oxidation Catalysts

Journal Article · Tue Oct 12 00:00:00 EDT 2021 · Journal of the American Chemical Society

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1021/jacs.1c07975· OSTI ID:1855593

Kuai, Chunguang ^[1]; Xi, Cong ^[2]; Hu, Anyang ^[3]; Zhang, Yan ^[4]; Xu, Zhengrui ^[3]; Nordlund, Dennis ^[5]; Sun, Cheng-Jun ^[6]; Cadigan, Christopher A. ^[7]; Richards, Ryan M.; Li, Luxi ^[6]; Dong, Cun-Ku ^[2]; Du, Xi-Wen ^[2]; Lin, Feng ^[3]

Wuhan Univ. (China); Tianjin Univ. (China); Virginia Polytechnic Inst. and State Univ. (Virginia Tech), Blacksburg, VA (United States)
Tianjin Univ. (China)
Virginia Polytechnic Inst. and State Univ. (Virginia Tech), Blacksburg, VA (United States)
Tianjin Univ. (China); SLAC National Accelerator Lab., Menlo Park, CA (United States). Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource (SSRL)
SLAC National Accelerator Lab., Menlo Park, CA (United States). Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource (SSRL)
Argonne National Lab. (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States). Advanced Photon Source (APS)
Colorado School of Mines, Golden, CO (United States)

We report the surface of an electrocatalyst undergoes dynamic chemical and structural transformations under electro-chemical operating conditions. There is a dynamic exchange of metal cations between the electrocatalyst and electrolyte. Understanding how iron in the electrolyte gets incorporated in the nickel hydroxide electrocatalyst is critical for pinpointing the roles of Fe during water oxidation. Here, we report that iron incorporation and oxygen evolution reaction (OER) are highly coupled, especially at high working potentials. The iron incorporation rate is much higher at OER potentials than that at the OER dormant state (low potentials). At OER potentials, iron incorporation favors electrochemically more reactive edge sites, as visualized by synchrotron X-ray fluorescence microscopy. Using X-ray absorption spectroscopy and density functional theory calculations, we show that Fe incorporation can suppress the oxidation of Ni and enhance the Ni reducibility, leading to improved OER catalytic activity. Our findings provide a holistic approach to understanding and tailoring Fe incorporation dynamics across the electrocatalyst-electrolyte interface, thus controlling catalytic processes.

View Accepted Manuscript (DOE)

Research Organization:: Argonne National Laboratory (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States); SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory (SLAC), Menlo Park, CA (United States)

Sponsoring Organization:: National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC); Natural Science Foundation of China; USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES); Virginia Tech University

Grant/Contract Number:: AC02-06CH11357; AC02-76SF00515

OSTI ID:: 1855593

Alternate ID(s):: OSTI ID: 1874794

Journal Information:: Journal of the American Chemical Society, Journal Name: Journal of the American Chemical Society Journal Issue: 44 Vol. 143; ISSN 0002-7863

Publisher:: American Chemical Society (ACS)Copyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

References (52)

Mastering Surface Reconstruction of Metastable Spinel Oxides for Better Water Oxidation Duan, Yan; Sun, Shengnan; Sun, Yuanmiao Advanced Materials, Vol. 31, Issue 12 https://doi.org/10.1002/adma.201807898	journal	January 2019
Layered Structure Causes Bulk NiFe Layered Double Hydroxide Unstable in Alkaline Oxygen Evolution Reaction Chen, Rong; Hung, Sung‐Fu; Zhou, Daojin Advanced Materials, Vol. 31, Issue 41 https://doi.org/10.1002/adma.201903909	journal	August 2019
A‐Site Management Prompts the Dynamic Reconstructed Active Phase of Perovskite Oxide OER Catalysts Sun, Yu; Li, Ran; Chen, Xiaoxuan Advanced Energy Materials, Vol. 11, Issue 12 https://doi.org/10.1002/aenm.202003755	journal	February 2021
Intrinsic Electrocatalytic Activity for Oxygen Evolution of Crystalline 3d‐Transition Metal Layered Double Hydroxides Dionigi, Fabio; Zhu, Jing; Zeng, Zhenhua Angewandte Chemie, Vol. 133, Issue 26 https://doi.org/10.1002/ange.202100631	journal	May 2021
Enhancement of Oxygen Evolution Activity of Nickel Oxyhydroxide by Electrolyte Alkali Cations Garcia, Amanda C.; Touzalin, Thomas; Nieuwland, Celine Angewandte Chemie International Edition, Vol. 58, Issue 37 https://doi.org/10.1002/anie.201905501	journal	July 2019
Universality in Oxygen Evolution Electrocatalysis on Oxide Surfaces Man, Isabela C.; Su, Hai‐Yan; Calle‐Vallejo, Federico ChemCatChem, Vol. 3, Issue 7 https://doi.org/10.1002/cctc.201000397	journal	March 2011
Dynamical changes of a Ni-Fe oxide water splitting catalyst investigated at different pH Görlin, Mikaela; Gliech, Manuel; de Araújo, Jorge Ferreira Catalysis Today, Vol. 262 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cattod.2015.10.018	journal	March 2016
Does the breaking of adsorption-energy scaling relations guarantee enhanced electrocatalysis? Govindarajan, Nitish; García-Lastra, Juan M.; Meijer, Evert Jan Current Opinion in Electrochemistry, Vol. 8 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.coelec.2018.03.025	journal	March 2018
Stability challenges of electrocatalytic oxygen evolution reaction: From mechanistic understanding to reactor design Chen, Feng-Yang; Wu, Zhen-Yu; Adler, Zachary Joule, Vol. 5, Issue 7 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joule.2021.05.005	journal	July 2021
“The Fe Effect”: A review unveiling the critical roles of Fe in enhancing OER activity of Ni and Co based catalysts Anantharaj, Sengeni; Kundu, Subrata; Noda, Suguru Nano Energy, Vol. 80 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nanoen.2020.105514	journal	February 2021
Hard X-ray fluorescence tomography—an emerging tool for structural visualization de Jonge, Martin D.; Vogt, Stefan Current Opinion in Structural Biology, Vol. 20, Issue 5 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbi.2010.09.002	journal	October 2010
Structural Self-Reconstruction of Catalysts in Electrocatalysis Jiang, Hongliang; He, Qun; Zhang, Youkui Accounts of Chemical Research, Vol. 51, Issue 11 https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.accounts.8b00449	journal	October 2018
Fe (Oxy)hydroxide Oxygen Evolution Reaction Electrocatalysis: Intrinsic Activity and the Roles of Electrical Conductivity, Substrate, and Dissolution Zou, Shihui; Burke, Michaela S.; Kast, Matthew G. Chemistry of Materials, Vol. 27, Issue 23 https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.chemmater.5b03404	journal	November 2015
Earth-Abundant Heterogeneous Water Oxidation Catalysts Hunter, Bryan M.; Gray, Harry B.; Müller, Astrid M. Chemical Reviews, Vol. 116, Issue 22 https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.chemrev.6b00398	journal	October 2016
Effects of Fe Electrolyte Impurities on Ni(OH) ₂ /NiOOH Structure and Oxygen Evolution Activity Klaus, Shannon; Cai, Yun; Louie, Mary W. The Journal of Physical Chemistry C, Vol. 119, Issue 13 https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jpcc.5b00105	journal	March 2015
Alkaline Electrolyte and Fe Impurity Effects on the Performance and Active-Phase Structure of NiOOH Thin Films for OER Catalysis Applications Michael, John D.; Demeter, Ethan L.; Illes, Steven M. The Journal of Physical Chemistry C, Vol. 119, Issue 21 https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jpcc.5b02458	journal	May 2015
Functional Independent Scaling Relation for ORR/OER Catalysts Christensen, Rune; Hansen, Heine A.; Dickens, Colin F. The Journal of Physical Chemistry C, Vol. 120, Issue 43 https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jpcc.6b09141	journal	October 2016
A Theoretical Investigation into the Role of Surface Defects for Oxygen Evolution on RuO ₂ Dickens, Colin F.; Nørskov, Jens K. The Journal of Physical Chemistry C, Vol. 121, Issue 34 https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jpcc.7b03481	journal	August 2017
Insights into the Electrochemical Oxygen Evolution Reaction with ab Initio Calculations and Microkinetic Modeling: Beyond the Limiting Potential Volcano Dickens, Colin F.; Kirk, Charlotte; Nørskov, Jens K. The Journal of Physical Chemistry C, Vol. 123, Issue 31 https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jpcc.9b03830	journal	July 2019
Sodiation Kinetics of Metal Oxide Conversion Electrodes: A Comparative Study with Lithiation He, Kai; Lin, Feng; Zhu, Yizhou Nano Letters, Vol. 15, Issue 9 https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.nanolett.5b01709	journal	August 2015
Guidelines for the Rational Design of Ni-Based Double Hydroxide Electrocatalysts for the Oxygen Evolution Reaction Diaz-Morales, Oscar; Ledezma-Yanez, Isis; Koper, Marc T. M. ACS Catalysis, Vol. 5, Issue 9 https://doi.org/10.1021/acscatal.5b01638	journal	August 2015
Interfacial Interaction between FeOOH and Ni–Fe LDH to Modulate the Local Electronic Structure for Enhanced OER Electrocatalysis Chen, Jiande; Zheng, Feng; Zhang, Shao-Jian ACS Catalysis, Vol. 8, Issue 12 https://doi.org/10.1021/acscatal.8b03489	journal	October 2018
Fully Oxidized Ni–Fe Layered Double Hydroxide with 100% Exposed Active Sites for Catalyzing Oxygen Evolution Reaction Kuai, Chunguang; Zhang, Yan; Wu, Deyao ACS Catalysis, Vol. 9, Issue 7 https://doi.org/10.1021/acscatal.9b01935	journal	May 2019
Role of Defects in the Interplay between Adsorbate Evolving and Lattice Oxygen Mechanisms of the Oxygen Evolution Reaction in RuO ₂ and IrO ₂ Zagalskaya, Alexandra; Alexandrov, Vitaly ACS Catalysis, Vol. 10, Issue 6 https://doi.org/10.1021/acscatal.9b05544	journal	February 2020
Structure–Activity Correlations in a Nickel–Borate Oxygen Evolution Catalyst Bediako, D. Kwabena; Lassalle-Kaiser, Benedikt; Surendranath, Yogesh Journal of the American Chemical Society, Vol. 134, Issue 15 https://doi.org/10.1021/ja301018q	journal	April 2012
Nickel–Iron Oxyhydroxide Oxygen-Evolution Electrocatalysts: The Role of Intentional and Incidental Iron Incorporation Trotochaud, Lena; Young, Samantha L.; Ranney, James K. Journal of the American Chemical Society, Vol. 136, Issue 18 https://doi.org/10.1021/ja502379c	journal	April 2014
Benchmarking Hydrogen Evolving Reaction and Oxygen Evolving Reaction Electrocatalysts for Solar Water Splitting Devices McCrory, Charles C. L.; Jung, Suho; Ferrer, Ivonne M. Journal of the American Chemical Society, Vol. 137, Issue 13 https://doi.org/10.1021/ja510442p	journal	March 2015
Identification of Highly Active Fe Sites in (Ni,Fe)OOH for Electrocatalytic Water Splitting Friebel, Daniel; Louie, Mary W.; Bajdich, Michal Journal of the American Chemical Society, Vol. 137, Issue 3 https://doi.org/10.1021/ja511559d	journal	January 2015
Operando Identification of the Dynamic Behavior of Oxygen Vacancy-Rich Co ₃ O ₄ for Oxygen Evolution Reaction Xiao, Zhaohui; Huang, Yu-Cheng; Dong, Chung-Li Journal of the American Chemical Society, Vol. 142, Issue 28 https://doi.org/10.1021/jacs.0c00257	journal	June 2020
Dynamically Stable Active Sites from Surface Evolution of Perovskite Materials during the Oxygen Evolution Reaction Lopes, Pietro P.; Chung, Dong Young; Rui, Xue Journal of the American Chemical Society, Vol. 143, Issue 7 https://doi.org/10.1021/jacs.0c08959	journal	January 2021
Surface Interrogation Scanning Electrochemical Microscopy of Ni _{1– x} Fe _x OOH (0 < x < 0.27) Oxygen Evolving Catalyst: Kinetics of the “fast” Iron Sites Ahn, Hyun S.; Bard, Allen J. Journal of the American Chemical Society, Vol. 138, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.1021/jacs.5b10977	journal	December 2015
Tracking Catalyst Redox States and Reaction Dynamics in Ni–Fe Oxyhydroxide Oxygen Evolution Reaction Electrocatalysts: The Role of Catalyst Support and Electrolyte pH Görlin, Mikaela; Ferreira de Araújo, Jorge; Schmies, Henrike Journal of the American Chemical Society, Vol. 139, Issue 5 https://doi.org/10.1021/jacs.6b12250	journal	January 2017
Reactive Fe-Sites in Ni/Fe (Oxy)hydroxide Are Responsible for Exceptional Oxygen Electrocatalysis Activity Stevens, Michaela Burke; Trang, Christina D. M.; Enman, Lisa J. Journal of the American Chemical Society, Vol. 139, Issue 33 https://doi.org/10.1021/jacs.7b07117	journal	August 2017
Functional Role of Fe-Doping in Co-Based Perovskite Oxide Catalysts for Oxygen Evolution Reaction Kim, Bae-Jung; Fabbri, Emiliana; Abbott, Daniel F. Journal of the American Chemical Society, Vol. 141, Issue 13 https://doi.org/10.1021/jacs.8b12101	journal	March 2019
Influence of Oxygen Evolution during Water Oxidation on the Surface of Perovskite Oxide Catalysts May, Kevin J.; Carlton, Christopher E.; Stoerzinger, Kelsey A. The Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters, Vol. 3, Issue 22 https://doi.org/10.1021/jz301414z	journal	October 2012
Phase evolution for conversion reaction electrodes in lithium-ion batteries Lin, Feng; Nordlund, Dennis; Weng, Tsu-Chien Nature Communications, Vol. 5, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms4358	journal	February 2014
Trends in activity for the water electrolyser reactions on 3d M(Ni,Co,Fe,Mn) hydr(oxy)oxide catalysts Subbaraman, Ram; Tripkovic, Dusan; Chang, Kee-Chul Nature Materials, Vol. 11, Issue 6 https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat3313	journal	May 2012
Dynamic surface self-reconstruction is the key of highly active perovskite nano-electrocatalysts for water splitting Fabbri, Emiliana; Nachtegaal, Maarten; Binninger, Tobias Nature Materials, Vol. 16, Issue 9 https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat4938	journal	July 2017
Universal scaling relations for the rational design of molecular water oxidation catalysts with near-zero overpotential Craig, Michael John; Coulter, Gabriel; Dolan, Eoin Nature Communications, Vol. 10, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-019-12994-w	journal	November 2019
In-situ structure and catalytic mechanism of NiFe and CoFe layered double hydroxides during oxygen evolution Dionigi, Fabio; Zeng, Zhenhua; Sinev, Ilya Nature Communications, Vol. 11, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-16237-1	journal	May 2020
Dynamic active-site generation of atomic iridium stabilized on nanoporous metal phosphides for water oxidation Jiang, Kang; Luo, Min; Peng, Ming Nature Communications, Vol. 11, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-16558-1	journal	June 2020
Dopants fixation of Ruthenium for boosting acidic oxygen evolution stability and activity Hao, Shaoyun; Liu, Min; Pan, Junjie Nature Communications, Vol. 11, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-19212-y	journal	October 2020
Considerations for the scaling-up of water splitting catalysts Kibsgaard, Jakob; Chorkendorff, Ib Nature Energy, Vol. 4, Issue 6 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41560-019-0407-1	journal	May 2019
Dynamic stability of active sites in hydr(oxy)oxides for the oxygen evolution reaction Chung, Dong Young; Lopes, Pietro P.; Farinazzo Bergamo Dias Martins, Pedro Nature Energy, Vol. 5, Issue 3 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41560-020-0576-y	journal	March 2020
Uncovering The Role of Oxygen in Ni-Fe(OxHy) Electrocatalysts using In situ Soft X-ray Absorption Spectroscopy during the Oxygen Evolution Reaction Drevon, Dorian; Görlin, Mikaela; Chernev, Petko Scientific Reports, Vol. 9, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-37307-x	journal	February 2019
Phase segregation reversibility in mixed-metal hydroxide water oxidation catalysts Kuai, Chunguang; Xu, Zhengrui; Xi, Cong Nature Catalysis, Vol. 3, Issue 9 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41929-020-0496-z	journal	August 2020
Creating compressive stress at the NiOOH/NiO interface for water oxidation Kuai, Chunguang; Zhang, Yan; Han, Lili Journal of Materials Chemistry A, Vol. 8, Issue 21 https://doi.org/10.1039/D0TA04244G	journal	January 2020
Influence of iron doping on tetravalent nickel content in catalytic oxygen evolving films Li, Nancy; Bediako, D. Kwabena; Hadt, Ryan G. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Vol. 114, Issue 7 https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1620787114	journal	January 2017
Characterization of NiFe oxyhydroxide electrocatalysts by integrated electronic structure calculations and spectroelectrochemistry Goldsmith, Zachary K.; Harshan, Aparna K.; Gerken, James B. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Vol. 114, Issue 12 https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1702081114	journal	March 2017
Wavelet analysis of extended x-ray absorption fine structure data Funke, H.; Scheinost, A. C.; Chukalina, M. Physical Review B, Vol. 71, Issue 9 https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.71.094110	journal	March 2005
A new FEFF -based wavelet for EXAFS data analysis Funke, Harald; Chukalina, Marina; Scheinost, Andreas C. Journal of Synchrotron Radiation, Vol. 14, Issue 5 https://doi.org/10.1107/S0909049507031901	journal	August 2007
Combining theory and experiment in electrocatalysis: Insights into materials design Seh, Zhi Wei; Kibsgaard, Jakob; Dickens, Colin F. Science, Vol. 355, Issue 6321 https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aad4998	journal	January 2017

Similar Records

Dynamics of precatalyst conversion and iron incorporation in nickel-based alkaline oxygen evolution reaction catalysts

Journal Article · Sun Nov 10 19:00:00 EST 2024 · Cell Reports Physical Science · OSTI ID:2583343

Engineering Active Fe Sites on Nickel–Iron Layered Double Hydroxide through Component Segregation for Oxygen Evolution Reaction

Journal Article · Mon Jan 20 19:00:00 EST 2020 · ChemSusChem · OSTI ID:1632119

Related Subjects

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CHEMISTRY
anions
electrolytes
oxidation
radiology
two dimensional materials

Revealing the Dynamics and Roles of Iron Incorporation in Nickel Hydroxide Water Oxidation Catalysts

Citation Formats

References (52)

Similar Records

Related Subjects