Ni-decorated Fe-/N- co-doped carbon anchored on porous cobalt oxide nanowires arrays for efficient electrocatalytic oxygen evolution

Quasi-Parallel NiFe Layered Double Hydroxide Nanosheet Arrays for Large-Current-Density Oxygen Evolution Electrocatalysis

Designing advanced electrocatalysts for oxygen evolution at large current density (>500 mA cm^-2 ) is critical to practical water splitting applications. Herein, a novel quasi-parallel NiFe layered double hydroxide (NiFe LDH) nanosheet arrays with pattern alignment on Ni foam was developed. The initial α-Ni(OH)₂ layer induced effective coprecipitation between Ni²⁺ and Fe³⁺ for the formation of LDH phase, guaranteeing the electronic pulling effect among metal cations and enhancing the interaction between active materials and substrate for excellent adhesion and electrical conductivity. Quasi-parallel NiFe LDH nanoarrays exhibited outstanding oxygen evolution activity with a small Tafel slope of 30.1 mV dec^-1 and overpotentials of 196, 255, and 284 mV at a current density of 10, 500, and 1000 mA cm^-2 in 1.0 m KOH solution, respectively, and high stability over 40 h at 750 mA cm^-2 . This work presents a new strategy towards fabricating electrode materials with exceptional performance.

Reducing the resistance for the use of electrochemical impedance spectroscopy analysis in materials chemistry

Electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) is a highly applicable electrochemical, analytical, and non-invasive technique for materials characterization, which allows the user to evaluate the impact, efficiency, and magnitude of different components within an electrical circuit at a higher resolution than other common electrochemical techniques such as cyclic voltammetry (CV) or chronoamperometry. EIS can be used to study mechanisms of surface reactions, evaluate kinetics and mass transport, and study the level of corrosion on conductive materials, just to name a few. Therefore, this review demonstrates the scope of physical properties of the materials that can be studied using EIS, such as for characterization of supercapacitors, dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs), conductive coatings, sensors, self-assembled monolayers (SAMs), and other materials. This guide was created to support beginner and intermediate level researchers in EIS studies to inspire a wider application of this technique for materials characterization. In this work, we provide a summary of the essential background theory of EIS, including experimental design, signal responses, and instrumentation. Then, we discuss the main graphical representations for EIS data, including a scope of the foundation principles of Nyquist, Bode phase angle, Bode magnitude, capacitance and Randles plots, followed by detailed step-by-step explanations of the corresponding calculations that evolve from these graphs and direct examples from the literature highlighting practical applications of EIS for characterization of different types of materials. In addition, we discuss various applications of EIS technique for materials research.