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Selective-leaching method to fabricate an Ir surface-enriched Ir-Ni oxide electrocatalyst for water oxidation

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Abstract

Durable and precious metal-lean electrocatalyst for water oxidation in acidic media would be of great significance for the large-scale application of acidic water electrolysis. Here, we report an Ir-Ni binary oxide electrocatalyst for the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) fabricated by acid leaching of Ni from Ni-rich composite oxides prepared using pyrolysis method. This Ni-leached binary oxide possesses Ir-enriched surface, porous morphology, and rutile phase structure of IrO2 with contracted lattice. In contrast, Ir-Ni binary oxide with the same composition prepared using simple pyrolysis method exhibits a rod-like aggregated morphology with Ni-enriched surface. Catalytic activity for OER of the Ni-leached binary oxide is higher than that of the pyrolyzed Ir-Ni oxide and pure IrO2. More importantly, the Ni-leached binary oxide exhibits much superior durability during continuous oxygen evolution process under a constant potential of 1.6 V compared with the pyrolyzed binary oxide and pure IrO2. Attributed to the Ir-rich surface and the anchor effect of inner Ni atoms to outer Ir atoms, the Ni-leached binary oxide shows a possibility of reducing the demand of the expensive and scarce Ir in OER electrocatalyst for acidic water splitting.

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Acknowledgments

This work is financially supported by the Research Foundation of Education Bureau of Hubei Province, China (Grant No. Q20141007).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Hubei Collaborative Innovation Center for Advanced Organic chemical Materials, Ministry of Education Key Laboratory for the Synthesis and Applications of Organic Functional Molecules, Hubei University, Wuhan, 430062, China

    Shuai Xu, Lihong Tian, Qinghua Xia & Wei Hu

  2. Hubei Key Laboratory of Electrochemical Power Sources, College of Chemistry and Molecular Sciences, Wuhan University, Wuhan, 430072, China

    Shengli Chen & Wei Hu

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  1. Shuai Xu
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  2. Shengli Chen
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  3. Lihong Tian
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  4. Qinghua Xia
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  5. Wei Hu
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Correspondence to Wei Hu.

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Xu, S., Chen, S., Tian, L. et al. Selective-leaching method to fabricate an Ir surface-enriched Ir-Ni oxide electrocatalyst for water oxidation. J Solid State Electrochem 20, 1961–1970 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10008-016-3200-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10008-016-3200-0

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