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Title: Defect engineering of mesoporous nickel ferrite and its application for highly enhanced water oxidation catalysis

Abstract

Spinel nickel ferrite (NiFe2O4) emerges as a promising low-cost catalyst for water splitting but it usually shows low catalytic activity because of its limited number of active sites and poor conductivity. For the first time, herein we have successfully overcome its weaknesses using defect engineering approach by creating oxygen vacancies in NiFe2O4. The existence of oxygen vacancy not only shifts up the d-band center, strengthens the adsorption of H2O, and thus provides more active catalytic sites, but also tunes the electron configuration and creates massive number of defective donor states in the band gap to facilitate charge transfer processes. The optimal defective catalyst showed significantly enhanced catalytic OER performance with an OER overpotential as low as 0.35 V at 10 mA cm-2 and a Tafel slope of only ~40 mV dec-1. Moreover, the impressive specific mass and area current density of 17.5 A g-1 and 0.106 A m-2 at 1.58 V vs. Finally, RHE have been achieved, which are ~23 and ~36 times higher than that of defect-free counterpart, respectively.

Authors:
 [1];  [2];  [3];  [4];  [2];  [4]
  1. Univ. of Science and Technology of China, Hefei (China). CAS Key Lab. of Materials for Energy Conversion, Dept. of Materials Science and Engineering, iChEM (Collaborative Innovation Center of Chemistry for Energy Materials)
  2. Argonne National Lab. (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States). X-ray Science Division
  3. Univ. of Science and Technology of China, Hefei (China). Hefei National Lab. for Physical Sciences at the Microscale
  4. Univ. of Science and Technology of China, Hefei (China). CAS Key Lab. of Materials for Energy Conversion, Dept. of Materials Science and Engineering, iChEM (Collaborative Innovation Center of Chemistry for Energy Materials); Univ. of Science and Technology of China, Hefei (China). Hefei National Lab. for Physical Sciences at the Microscale
Publication Date:
Research Org.:
Argonne National Lab. (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States)
Sponsoring Org.:
USDOE Office of Science (SC); National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC)
OSTI Identifier:
1426188
Alternate Identifier(s):
OSTI ID: 1566231
Grant/Contract Number:  
AC02-06CH11357
Resource Type:
Accepted Manuscript
Journal Name:
Journal of Catalysis
Additional Journal Information:
Journal Volume: 358; Journal Issue: C; Journal ID: ISSN 0021-9517
Publisher:
Elsevier
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Subject:
36 MATERIALS SCIENCE; 37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CHEMISTRY; active site; conductivity; oxygen evolution reaction; oxygen vacancy; water oxidation

Citation Formats

Yue, Qiudi, Liu, Cunming, Wan, Yangyang, Wu, Xiaojun, Zhang, Xiaoyi, and Du, Pingwu. Defect engineering of mesoporous nickel ferrite and its application for highly enhanced water oxidation catalysis. United States: N. p., 2018. Web. doi:10.1016/j.jcat.2017.10.027.
Yue, Qiudi, Liu, Cunming, Wan, Yangyang, Wu, Xiaojun, Zhang, Xiaoyi, & Du, Pingwu. Defect engineering of mesoporous nickel ferrite and its application for highly enhanced water oxidation catalysis. United States. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcat.2017.10.027
Yue, Qiudi, Liu, Cunming, Wan, Yangyang, Wu, Xiaojun, Zhang, Xiaoyi, and Du, Pingwu. Thu . "Defect engineering of mesoporous nickel ferrite and its application for highly enhanced water oxidation catalysis". United States. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcat.2017.10.027. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1426188.
@article{osti_1426188,
title = {Defect engineering of mesoporous nickel ferrite and its application for highly enhanced water oxidation catalysis},
author = {Yue, Qiudi and Liu, Cunming and Wan, Yangyang and Wu, Xiaojun and Zhang, Xiaoyi and Du, Pingwu},
abstractNote = {Spinel nickel ferrite (NiFe2O4) emerges as a promising low-cost catalyst for water splitting but it usually shows low catalytic activity because of its limited number of active sites and poor conductivity. For the first time, herein we have successfully overcome its weaknesses using defect engineering approach by creating oxygen vacancies in NiFe2O4. The existence of oxygen vacancy not only shifts up the d-band center, strengthens the adsorption of H2O, and thus provides more active catalytic sites, but also tunes the electron configuration and creates massive number of defective donor states in the band gap to facilitate charge transfer processes. The optimal defective catalyst showed significantly enhanced catalytic OER performance with an OER overpotential as low as 0.35 V at 10 mA cm-2 and a Tafel slope of only ~40 mV dec-1. Moreover, the impressive specific mass and area current density of 17.5 A g-1 and 0.106 A m-2 at 1.58 V vs. Finally, RHE have been achieved, which are ~23 and ~36 times higher than that of defect-free counterpart, respectively.},
doi = {10.1016/j.jcat.2017.10.027},
journal = {Journal of Catalysis},
number = C,
volume = 358,
place = {United States},
year = {Thu Feb 01 00:00:00 EST 2018},
month = {Thu Feb 01 00:00:00 EST 2018}
}

Journal Article:

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Cited by: 47 works
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Figures / Tables:

Scheme 1 Scheme 1: Schematic synthesis process of NFO and color changes with the reduction temperatures.

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Works referencing / citing this record:

Nickel‐Based Transition Metal Nitride Electrocatalysts for the Oxygen Evolution Reaction
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Crystal phase induced band gap energy enhancing the photo-catalytic properties of Zn–Fe 2 O 4 /Au NPs: experimental and theoretical studies
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Mesoporous Nanocast Electrocatalysts for Oxygen Reduction and Oxygen Evolution Reactions
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