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Facile synthesis of Co and Ce dual-doped Ni3S2 nanosheets on Ni foam for enhanced oxygen evolution reaction

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Abstract

Developing efficient and stable oxygen evolution reaction (OER) electrocatalysts via doping strategy has well-documented for electrochemical water splitting. Herein, a homogeneous structure (denoted as Co/Ce-Ni3S2/NF) composed of Co and Ce dual doped Ni3S2 nanosheets on nickel foam was synthesized by a facile one-step hydrothermal method. Co and Ce dopants are distributed inside the host sulfide, thereby raising the active sites and the electrical conductivity. Besides, the CeOx nanoparticles generated by part of the Ce dopants as a cocatalyst further improve the catalytic activity by adding defective sites and enhancing the electron transfer. As a consequence, the obtained Co/Ce-Ni3S2/NF electrode exhibits better electrocatalytic activity than single Co or Ce doped Ni3S2 and pure Ni3S2, with low overpotential (286 mV) at 20 mA-cm−2, a small Tafel slope and excellent long-term durability in strong alkaline solution. These results presented here not only offer a novel platform for designing transition metal and lanthanide dual-doped catalysts, but also supply some guidelines for constructing catalysts in other catalytic applications.

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Acknowledgements

We acknowledge the financial support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 21871121 and 21431002) and Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (No. Lzujbky-2018-ot01).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratory of Clean Energy Chemistry and Materials, State Key Laboratory of Solid Lubrication, Lanzhou Institute of Chemical Physics Chinese Academy of Sciences, Lanzhou, 730000, China

    Xiaoxia Wu, Xingbin Yan & Yu Tang

  2. State Key Laboratory of Applied Organic Chemistry, Key Laboratory of Nonferrous Metal Chemistry and Resources Utilization of Gansu Province, College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, 730000, China

    Xiaoxia Wu, Tong Zhang, Jiaxu Wei, Pengfei Feng & Yu Tang

  3. Center of Materials Science and Optoelectronics Engineering, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China

    Xiaoxia Wu & Xingbin Yan

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  1. Xiaoxia Wu
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  2. Tong Zhang
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  3. Jiaxu Wei
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Correspondence to Xingbin Yan or Yu Tang.

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Wu, X., Zhang, T., Wei, J. et al. Facile synthesis of Co and Ce dual-doped Ni3S2 nanosheets on Ni foam for enhanced oxygen evolution reaction. Nano Res. 13, 2130–2135 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-020-2819-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-020-2819-4

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