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Revealing the effect of anion-tuning in bimetallic chalcogenides on electrocatalytic overall water splitting

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Abstract

Enhancing electrocatalytic water splitting performance by modulating the intrinsic electronic structure is of great importance. Here, porous bimetallic oxide and chalcogenide nanosheets grown on carbon paper denoted as NiCo2X4/CP (X = O, S, and Se) are prepared to demonstrate how the anion components affect the electronic structures and thereby disclose the correlation between their intermediates interaction and catalytic activities. The experimental characterization and theoretical calculation demonstrate that Se and S substitution can promote the ratio of Co3+/Co2+ and thereby modulate the electronic structure accompanied with the upshift of d band centers, which not only enhance the inner conductivity but also regulate the interaction between the catalyst surface and intermediates, especially for the adsorption of absorbed H and hydroperoxy intermediates towards respective hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) and oxygen evolution reaction (OER). As a result, a full alkaline electrolyzer using NiCo2Se4/CP and NiCo2S4/CP as cathode and anode delivers a low voltage of 1.51 V at 10 mA·cm−2, which is comparable even superior to most transition metal-based electrolyzers.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 21771012, 21601008), the Science Fund for Creative Research Groups of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 51621003).

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  1. Beijing Key Laboratory for Green Catalysis and Separation, Faculty of Environment and Life, Beijing University of Technology, Beijing, 100124, China

    Jian Zhou, Yibo Dou, Tao He, Awu Zhou, Xiang-Jing Kong, Xue-Qian Wu, Tongxin Liu & Jian-Rong Li

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  1. Jian Zhou
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Zhou, J., Dou, Y., He, T. et al. Revealing the effect of anion-tuning in bimetallic chalcogenides on electrocatalytic overall water splitting. Nano Res. 14, 4548–4555 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-021-3370-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-021-3370-7

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