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Title: In Silico Discovery of New Dopants for Fe-Doped Ni Oxyhydroxide (Ni1–xFexOOH) Catalysts for Oxygen Evolution Reaction

Journal Article · · Journal of the American Chemical Society

The oxygen evolution reaction (OER) is critical to efficient water splitting to produce the H2 fuel for sustainable energy production. Currently, the best non-noble metal OER electrocatalyst in base conditions is the Fe-doped NiOOH (Ni1–xFexOOH), with an overpotential of η = 0.4, but much lower values are desired. We use density functional theory to determine the overall mechanism for the OER of Ni1–xFexOOH, concluding that promoting radical character on the metal–oxo bond is critical to efficient OER. Then we consider replacing Fe with 17 other transition metals of the Fe, Ru, and Os rows, where we find 3 new promising candidates: Co, Rh, and Ir, which we estimate to have η = 0.27, 0.15, and 0.02, respectively, all very much improved performance compared to Fe, making all three systems excellent candidates for experimental testing.

Research Organization:
California Institute of Technology (CalTech), Pasadena, CA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES)
Grant/Contract Number:
SC0004993
OSTI ID:
1467620
Journal Information:
Journal of the American Chemical Society, Vol. 140, Issue 22; ISSN 0002-7863
Publisher:
American Chemical Society (ACS)Copyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 248 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

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Synthesis of amorphous boride nanosheets by the chemical reduction of Prussian blue analogs for efficient water electrolysis journal January 2018
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Surface dual-oxidation induced metallic copper doping into NiFe electrodes for electrocatalytic water oxidation journal January 2019
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Figures / Tables (4)