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Synergistic electronic interaction between ruthenium and nickel-iron hydroxide for enhanced oxygen evolution reaction

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Abstract

The efficiency of electrochemical water splitting is extremely hampered by the sluggish oxygen evolution reaction (OER) occurred at the anode. Therefore, developing high-performance OER electrocatalysts is crucial for realizing the industrialized application of water splitting. Herein, a high-efficiency electrocatalyst of ruthenium-decorated nickel-iron hydroxide (10Ru-NiFe LDH) supported on Ni foam is successfully synthesized for OER. Modifying NiFe LDH with ruthenium can optimize the electronic density to form high valences of metal sites, which is beneficial to promote its OER performance. Consequently, the 10Ru-NiFe LDH only needs a low overpotential of 222 mV to achieve a current density of 50 mA·cm−2, which exhibits fast OER kinetics with a small Tafel slope of 58 mV·dec−1. Moreover, this electrocatalyst shows high stability over 20 h at a high current density of 100 mA·cm−2 without obvious decay. The decent OER performances can be ascribed to the increased active sites and the synergistic electronic interactions among Ni, Fe and Ru. This work provides an effective approach for designing desirable electrocatalysts for OER.

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摘要

阳极处缓慢的析氧反应(OER)极大地阻碍了电解水的效率。因此, 开发高性能的OER电催化剂是实现电解水工业化应用的关键。基于此, 本工作成功地合成了—种负载在泡沫镍基底上的钌修饰的镍铁氢氧化物(10Ru-NiFe LDH)高效电催化剂。钌修饰可以优化电子密度, 形成高价态的金属位点, 有利于促进OER。因此, 10Ru-NiFe LDH具有良好的OER活性。其只需要 222 mV 的低过电位就可以达到 50 mA· cm-2 的电流密度。该催化剂同时表现出快速OER动力学, Tafel斜率为 58 mV·dec-1。此外, 在100 mA·cm-2的大电流密度下, 该电催化剂在20 h内表现出很高的稳定性, 且没有明显的电压衰减。催化剂优异的OER性能主要归因于Ni, Fe和Ru之间的电子相互作用和增加的活性位点。这项工作为设计理想的OER电催化剂提供了—种有效的方法。

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Acknowledgements

This study was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 12074435, 51871250 and 52001335), the Science and Technology Innovation Program of Hunan Province (No. 2021RC4001) and the State Key Laboratory of Advanced Technologies for Comprehensive Utilization of Platinum Metal (No. SKL-SPM-202005).

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  1. Hao Cui and Han-Xiao Liao contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Powder Metallurgy, Central South University, Changsha, 410083, China

    Hao Cui, Han-Xiao Liao, Zhi-Lu Wang, Peng-Fei Tan & Pan Jun

  2. School of Minerals Processing and Bioengineering, Central South University, Changsha, 410083, China

    Jian-Ping Xie

  3. School of Materials Science and Engineering, University of New South Wales, Sydney, 2052, Australia

    De-Wei Chu

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  1. Hao Cui
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Cui, H., Liao, HX., Wang, ZL. et al. Synergistic electronic interaction between ruthenium and nickel-iron hydroxide for enhanced oxygen evolution reaction. Rare Met. 41, 2606–2615 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12598-022-02003-3

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