N, P co-doped Ni/Mo-based multicomponent electrocatalysts in situ decorated on Ni foam for overall water splitting

Phosphorus-doped nickel cobalt oxide (NiCo2O4) wrapped in 3D hierarchical hollow N-doped carbon nanoflowers as highly efficient bifunctional electrocatalysts for overall water splitting

Properly design and fabricate capable electrocatalysts with 3D hierarchical hollow framework to realize cost-effective and efficacious overall water splitting (OWS) are particularly meaningful for the large-scale arrangement of pivotal energy technology. In this study, P-doped NiCo2O4 nanoparticles encapsulated in N-doped carbon hierarchical hollow nanoflowers (P-NiCo2O4@NCHHNFs) were constructed using the hydrothermal-pyrolysis-phosphorization approach. This fascinating architecture can not merely serve as a conductive pathway for electron transfer, but at the same time effectively inhibited the aggregation and corrosion of the NiCo2O4 nanoparticles. Additionally, the P doping not only regulates electronic structure configuration to boost the intrinsic activity of the catalyst, but also enhance electrochemical surface areas to reveal more accessible active sites. Attributing to these characteristics, the as-prepared P-NiCo2O4@NCHHNFs exhibit preeminent electrocatalytic performance with low overpotentials of 283 mV and 162 mV for oxygen evolution reaction (OER) and hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) (at 10 mA cm-2), respectively. Specifically, by using the P-NiCo2O4@NCHHNFs as bifunctional catalysts, a low potential of 1.56 V (at 10 mA cm-2) is sufficient to drive overall water splitting with splendid durability. This study proposed an innovative strategy for the conceiving and fabricating high-performance catalysts via heteroatom-doping.

Confined growth of Ultrathin, nanometer-sized FeOOH/CoP heterojunction nanosheet arrays as efficient self-supported electrode for oxygen evolution reaction

Self-supported electrodes, featuring abundant active species and rapid mass transfer, are promising for practical applications in water electrolysis. However, constructing efficient self-supported electrodes with a strong affinity between the catalytic components and the substrate is of great challenge. In this study, by combining the ideas of in-situ construction and space-confined growth, we designed a novel self-supported FeOOH/cobalt phosphide (CoP) heterojunctions grown on a carefully modified commercial Ni foam (NF) with three-dimensional (3D) hierarchically porous Ni skeleton (FeOOH/CoP/3D NF). The specific porous structure of 3D NF directs the confined growth of FeOOH/CoP catalyst into ultra-thin and small-sized nanosheet arrays with abundant edge active sites. The active FeOOH/CoP component is stably anchored on the rough pore wall of 3D NF support, leading to superior stability and improved conductivity. These structural advantages contributed to a highly facilitated oxygen evolution reaction (OER) activity and enhanced durability of the FeOOH/CoP/3D NF electrode. Herein, the FeOOH/CoP/3D NF electrode afforded a low overpotential of 234 mV at 10 mA cm-2 (41 mV smaller than FeOOH/CoP grown on unmodified Ni foam) and high stability for over 90 h, which is among the top reported OER catalysts. Our study provides an effective idea and technique for the construction of active and robust self-supported electrodes for water electrolysis.

Defect Engineering for Enhanced Electrocatalytic Oxygen Reaction on Transition Metal Oxides: The Role of Metal Defects

Metal defect engineering is a highly effective strategy for addressing the prevalent high overpotential issues associated with transition metal oxides functioning as dual-function commercial oxygen reduction reaction/oxygen evolution reaction catalysts for increasing their activity and stability. However, the high formation energy of metal defects poses a challenge to the development of strategies to precisely control the selectivity during metal defect formation. Here, density functional theory calculations are used to demonstrate that altering the pathway of metal defect formation releases metal atoms as metal chlorides, which effectively reduces the formation energy of defects. The metal defects on the monometallic metal oxide surface (Mn, Fe, Co, and Ni) are selectively produced using chlorine plasma. The characterization and density functional theory calculations reveal that catalytic activity is enhanced owing to electronic delocalization induced by metal defects, which reduces the theoretical overpotential. Notably, ab initio molecular dynamics calculations, ex situ XPS, and in situ ATR-SEIRAS suggest that metal defects effectively improve the adsorption of reactive species on active sites and enhance the efficiency of product desorption, thereby boosting catalytic performance.

Spark plasma sintered porous Ni as a novel substrate of Ni3Se2@Ni self-supporting electrode for ultra-durable hydrogen evolution reaction

Developing efficient and durable self-supporting catalytic electrodes is an important way for industrial applications of hydrogen evolution reaction. Currently, commercial nickel foam (NF)-based electrode has been widely used due to its good catalytic performance. However, the NF consisting of smooth skeleton surface and large pores not only exhibits poor conductivity but also provides insufficient space for catalyst decoration and sufficient adhesion, resulting in inadequate catalytic performance and poor durability of NF-based electrodes. In this paper, a novel three-dimensional porous Ni substrate with multangular skeleton surface and small pore structure was prepared by a modified spark plasma sintering technique, and subsequently Ni3Se2@Porous Ni electrode with a large number of Ni3Se2 nanosheets uniformly distributed on the surface was obtained by one-step in-situ selenization. The electrode exhibits outstanding conductivity and catalytic hydrogen evolution reaction, providing a low overpotential of 183 mV at a current density of 100 mA cm-2. Due to the strong interfacial bonding between Ni and Ni3Se2, the Ni3Se2@Porous Ni electrode shows strong durability, which can work stably at 85 mA cm-2 for more than 200 h. This work provides an effective strategy for the rational preparation of metal substrates for efficient and durable self-supporting catalytic electrodes.

Phosphorus/sulfur co-doped heterogeneous NiCoPxSy nanoarrays boosting overall water splitting

In the large-scale implementation of renewable energy devices, the availability of stable and highly catalytic non-precious metal catalysts for the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) and oxygen evolution reaction (OER) is crucial. Meanwhile, integrating bifunctional electrocatalysts simultaneously on both the anode and cathode still faces challenges. To address this, a stepped preparation strategy was adopted on a nickel foam (NF) substrate to synthesize P, S co-doped NiCoPxSy nanowire array catalysts. The prepared NiCoPxSy catalysts demonstrated a small Tafel slope of 72.5 mV dec-1 for HER and 72.3 mV dec-1 for OER by requiring only 37 mV (326 mV) overpotential to achieve a current density of 10 mA cm-2 (50 mA cm-2). Moreover, when assembled into an electrolytic cell in 1 M KOH, the NiCoPxSy catalysts achieved a low voltage of 1.55 V at 10 mA cm-2 current density and exhibited long-term stability. The outstanding electrocatalytic performance can be attributed to the influence of doped anions on the electronic states and distribution among different atoms, which thereby positively affected the electrocatalytic activity. This research provides an effective method for designing innovative catalysts and paving the way to produce clean energy.