Hierarchical NiCo2O4/NiFe/Pt heterostructures supported on nickel foam as bifunctional electrocatalysts for efficient oxygen/hydrogen production

Qingyou Huang; Yang Cao; Xiaohong Wang; Jinchun Tu; Qianfeng Xia; Qiang Wu

doi:10.1039/C9RA07012E

Hierarchical NiCo₂O₄/NiFe/Pt heterostructures supported on nickel foam as bifunctional electrocatalysts for efficient oxygen/hydrogen production†

Qingyou Huang,^a Yang Cao,^cd Xiaohong Wang,^d Jinchun Tu,

^d Qianfeng Xia*^b and Qiang Wu

*^a

Author affiliations

* Corresponding authors

^a Key Laboratory of Emergency and Trauma of Ministry of Education, Research Unit of Island Emergency Medicine of Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, Hainan Medical University, Haikou, Hainan 571199, P. R. China
E-mail: wuqiang001001@aliyun.com

^b Key Laboratory of Tropical Translalional Medicine of Ministry of Education, School of Tropical Medicine and Laboratory Medicine, Hainan Medical University, Haikou, Hainan 571199, P. R. China
E-mail: xiaqianfeng@sina.com

^c Qiongtai Normal University, Haikou 571127, Hainan, P. R. China

^d State Key Laboratory of Marine Resource Utilization in South China Sea, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Hainan University, Haikou 570228, P. R. China

Abstract

As the demand for clean and renewable energy increases, high-efficiency multifunctional electrocatalysts for water cracking have become a research hotspot. In this study, a NiCo₂O₄/NiFe/Pt composite with a hierarchical structure was successfully constructed by combining a hydrothermal growth and electrodeposition method with nickel foam as the scaffold material, and its overall water cracking reaction was studied. The laminar-structured NiCo₂O₄/NiFe composite exhibits an improved number of electrochemically active sites and shorter electron transport pathways, while the Pt particles deposited on the NiCo₂O₄/NiFe composite are conducive to improve the hydrogen evolution reaction without affecting the efficiency of the oxygen evolution reaction of the intrinsic material. The NiCo₂O₄/NiFe/Pt composite shows an excellent overall water cracking performance under alkaline conditions with a current density of 10 mA cm⁻² at an applied potential of 1.45 V, indicating a promising research prospect.

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Article information

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1039/C9RA07012E
Article type: Paper
Submitted: 03 Sep 2019
Accepted: 24 Oct 2019
First published: 29 Oct 2019
This article is Open Access

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RSC Adv., 2019,9, 34995-35002

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Hierarchical NiCo₂O₄/NiFe/Pt heterostructures supported on nickel foam as bifunctional electrocatalysts for efficient oxygen/hydrogen production

Q. Huang, Y. Cao, X. Wang, J. Tu, Q. Xia and Q. Wu, RSC Adv., 2019, 9, 34995 DOI: 10.1039/C9RA07012E

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