Uniquely integrated Fe-doped Ni(OH)2 nanosheets for highly efficient oxygen and hydrogen evolution reactions

Abstract

Developing high-efficiency electrocatalysts for both oxygen evolution reaction (OER) and hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) is vital for the production of hydrogen on a large scale by electrocatalytic splitting of water. Herein, Fe-doped Ni(OH)₂ nanosheets directly grown on commercial Ni foam (FeNiOH/NF) were fabricated through a facile hydrothermal method in (NH₄)₂S₂O₈ aqueous solution containing iron salts. The integrated architecture with hierarchical pores is beneficial for exposing sufficient catalytically active sites and providing evaluated structural and electrical properties. In particular, the Fe-induced partial-charge-transfer greatly modifies the electronic structure of Ni(OH)₂, which evidently promotes the electrocatalytic activity of the as-fabricated FeNiOH/NF for OER and HER. Thus, as an electrocatalyst for OER, FeNiOH/NF exhibits excellent activity with overpotentials of 271 and 318 mV to deliver current densities of 20 and 100 mA cm⁻², respectively, with a small Tafel slope of 72 mV dec⁻¹ in 1.0 M KOH, demonstrating the very high level of novelty and sufficient improvement over the current state-of-the-art IrO₂ electrocatalyst. Most importantly, there is an increase in overpotential by only 23 mV during continuous reaction for over 20 h at an applied potential of 1.62 V to deliver current density of 500 mA cm⁻². The as-fabricated electrocatalyst also enables high HER activity with robust stability. Finally, an overall water splitting current density of 10 mA cm⁻² can be obtained at a cell voltage of 1.67 V in a two-electrode alkaline electrolyzer using FeNiOH/NF as both anode and cathode, along with impressive operation stability. This development with significant over the state-of-the-art IrO₂ electrocatalyst can be widely extended to large-scale fabrication of versatile electrocatalysts for efficient water splitting technology.