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

Journal Article · · Journal of Catalysis
 [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
+ Show Author Affiliations

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.

Research Organization:
Argonne National Laboratory (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC); National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC)
Grant/Contract Number:
AC02-06CH11357
OSTI ID:
1426188
Alternate ID(s):
OSTI ID: 1566231
Journal Information:
Journal of Catalysis, Vol. 358, Issue C; ISSN 0021-9517
Publisher:
ElsevierCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 58 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

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Cited By (4)

Nickel‐Based Transition Metal Nitride Electrocatalysts for the Oxygen Evolution Reaction journal August 2019
Crystal phase induced band gap energy enhancing the photo-catalytic properties of Zn–Fe 2 O 4 /Au NPs: experimental and theoretical studies
  • Huerta-Aguilar, Carlos Alberto; Ramírez-Alejandre, Aida Araceli; Thangarasu, Pandiyan
  • Catalysis Science & Technology, Vol. 9, Issue 12 https://doi.org/10.1039/c9cy00678h
journal January 2019
Laser‐Assisted Doping and Architecture Engineering of Fe 3 O 4 Nanoparticles for Highly Enhanced Oxygen Evolution Reaction journal July 2019
Mesoporous Nanocast Electrocatalysts for Oxygen Reduction and Oxygen Evolution Reactions journal August 2019

Figures / Tables (8)

Scheme 1(p. 17)figure Scheme 1
Figure 1(p. 18)figure Figure 1
Figure 2(p. 19)figure Figure 2
Figure 3(p. 20)figure Figure 3
Figure 4(p. 21)figure Figure 4
Figure 5(p. 22)figure Figure 5
Table 1(p. 23)table Table 1
Table 2(p. 24)table Table 2

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Related Subjects

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE
37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CHEMISTRY
active site
conductivity
oxygen evolution reaction
oxygen vacancy
water oxidation