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In situ construction of porous hierarchical (Ni3-xFex)FeN/Ni heterojunctions toward efficient electrocatalytic oxygen evolution

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Abstract

As a choke point in water electrolysis, the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) suffers from the severe electrode polarization and large overpotential. Herein, the porous hierarchical hetero-(Ni3-xFex)FeN/Ni catalysts are in situ constructed for the efficient electrocatalytic OER. X-ray absorption fine structure characterizations reveal the strong Ni-Fe bimetallic interaction in (Ni3-xFex)FeN/Ni. Theoretical study indicates the heterojunction and bimetallic interaction decrease the free-energy change for the rate-limiting step of the OER and the overpotential thereof. In addition, the high conductivity and porous hierarchical morphology favor the electron transfer, electrolyte access and O2 release. Consequently, the optimized catalyst achieves a low overpotential of 223 mV at 10 mA·cm-2, a small Tafel slope of 68 mV·dec-1, and a high stability. The excellent performance of the optimized catalyst is also demonstrated by the overall water electrolysis with a low working voltage and high Faradaic efficiency. Moreover, the correlation between the structure and performance is well established by the experimental characterizations and theoretical calculations, which confirms the origin of the OER activity from the surface metal oxyhydroxide in situ generated upon applying the current. This study suggests a promising approach to the advanced OER electrocatalysts for practical applications by constructing the porous hierarchical metal-compound/metal heterojunctions.

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Acknowledgements

This work was jointly supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (Nos. 2017YFA0206500 and 2018YFA0209103), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 21832003, 21773111, 51571110, and 21573107), and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (No. 020514380126). The numerical calculations have been done on the computing facilities in the High Performance Computing Center (HPCC) of Nan**g University. We thank the staff of the BL14W1 beamline at Shanghai Synchrotron Radiation Facility for assistance with the X-ray absorption measurements.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Mesoscopic Chemistry of MOE and Jiangsu Provincial Laboratory of Nanotechnology School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Nan**g University, Nan**g, 210023, China

    Minglei Yan, Kun Mao, Jie Zhao, **zhang Wang, Lijun Yang, Qiang Wu & Zheng Hu

  2. Key Laboratory of Soil Environment and Pollution Remediation, Institute of Soil Science, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Nan**g, 210008, China

    Peixin Cui

  3. Shanghai Advanced Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, 201210, China

    Chi Chen & Hui Yang

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  1. Minglei Yan
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  2. Kun Mao
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Correspondence to Qiang Wu or Zheng Hu.

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12274_2020_2649_MOESM3_ESM.pdf

In situ construction of porous hierarchical (Ni3-xFex)FeN/Ni heterojunctions toward efficient electrocatalytic oxygen evolution

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Yan, M., Mao, K., Cui, P. et al. In situ construction of porous hierarchical (Ni3-xFex)FeN/Ni heterojunctions toward efficient electrocatalytic oxygen evolution. Nano Res. 13, 328–334 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-020-2649-4

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