Oxygen vacancy-rich amorphous FeNi hydroxide nanoclusters as an efficient electrocatalyst for water oxidation

Cao, Youhai; Su, Yang; Xu, Liangliang; Yang, Xiaohua; Han, Zhongkang; Cao, Rui; Li, Gao

doi:10.1016/j.jechem.2022.03.044

Oxygen vacancy-rich amorphous FeNi hydroxide nanoclusters as an efficient electrocatalyst for water oxidation

Journal Article · Sat Apr 02 00:00:00 EDT 2022 · Journal of Energy Chemistry

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jechem.2022.03.044· OSTI ID:1879835

Cao, Youhai ^[1]; Su, Yang ^[1]; Xu, Liangliang ^[2]; Yang, Xiaohua ^[3]; ^[4]; Cao, Rui ^[5]; Li, Gao ^[1]

Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Dalian (China)
Hanyang Univ., Seoul (Korea, Republic of)
Jiangsu University, Zhenjiang (China)
Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology, Moscow (Russia)
SLAC National Accelerator Lab., Menlo Park, CA (United States)

Here, a one-pot strategy is presented to directly synthesize amorphous Fe_xNi_y hydroxide nanoclusters (denoted as ANC-Fe_xNi_y, <2 nm) with oxygen vacancies induced by ionic liquids. The ANC-Fe_xNi_y catalyst presents abundant catalytic sites and high intrinsic conductivity. As such, the optimized ANC-Fe₁Ni₂ exhibits high activity in oxygen evolution reaction (OER) with a Tafel slope of 39 mV dec^–1 and an overpotential of 266 mV at 10 mA cm^–2. Notably, the optimized ANC-Fe₁Ni₂ shows an extraordinarily large mass activity of 3028 A g_FeNi–1 at the overpotential of 300 mV, which is ~24-fold of commercial RuO₂ catalyst. The superior activity of these Fe_xNi_y hydroxide nanoclusters is ascribed to (i) the amorphous and distorted structure with abundant oxygen vacancies, and (ii) enhanced active site density by downsizing the ANC-Fe_xNi_y clusters. This strategy provides a novel route for enhancing OER electrocatalytic performance and highly encouraging for the future application of amorphous metal hydroxides in catalysis.

View Accepted Manuscript (DOE)

Research Organization:: SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory (SLAC), Menlo Park, CA (United States)

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

Grant/Contract Number:: AC02-76SF00515

OSTI ID:: 1879835

Journal Information:: Journal of Energy Chemistry, Journal Name: Journal of Energy Chemistry Vol. 71; ISSN 2095-4956

Publisher:: ElsevierCopyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

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37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CHEMISTRY
amorphous Ni-Fe based nanoclusters
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Oxygen vacancy-rich amorphous FeNi hydroxide nanoclusters as an efficient electrocatalyst for water oxidation

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