Nano Research

, Volume 11, Issue 4, pp 2149–2158 | Cite as

3D mesoporous rose-like nickel-iron selenide microspheres as advanced electrocatalysts for the oxygen evolution reaction

Research Article
First Online:
Received:
Revised:
Accepted:

Abstract

The development of efficient and stable non-noble metal-based electrocatalysts for the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) is one of the essential challenges for the upcoming hydrogen economy. Herein, 3D mesoporous nickel iron selenide with rose-like microsphere architecture was directly grown on Ni foam via a successive two-step hydrothermal method. The unique 3D mesoporous rose-like morphology leads to a higher number of active sites as well as fast mass and electron transport through the entire electrode, and facilitates the release of O2 bubbles formed during the OER catalysis. As a result, the synthesized Ni0.76Fe0.24Se exhibits superior OER performances, with an ultralow overpotential of 197 mV needed to produce a current density of 10 mA·cm–2 in 1 M KOH, outperforming all transition metal selenide OER catalysts reported to date.

Open image in new window

Keywords

transition metal selenide oxygen evolution reaction NiFeSe 3D rose-like microspheres 
This is a preview of subscription content, log in to check access.

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Notes

Acknowledgements

This work was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos.21571145, 21633008), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities and Large-scale Instrument and Equipment Sharing Foundation of Wuhan University.

Supplementary material

12274_2017_1832_MOESM1_ESM.pdf (2.8 mb)
3D mesoporous rose-like nickel-iron selenide microspheres as advanced electrocatalysts for the oxygen evolution reaction

References

  1. [1]
    Chu, S.; Majumdar, A. Opportunities and challenges for asustainable energy future. Nature 2012, 488, 294–303.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  2. [2]
    Zou, X. X.; Zhang, Y. Noble metal-free hydrogen evolution catalysts for water splitting. Chem. Soc. Rev. 2015, 44, 5148–5180.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  3. [3]
    Liu, T. T.; Liu, D. N.; Qu, F. L.; Wang, D. X.; Zhang, L.; Ge, R. X.; Hao, S.; Ma, Y. J.; Du, G.; Asiri, A. M. et al. Enhanced electrocatalysis for energy-efficient hydrogen production over CoP catalyst with nonelectroactive Zn as a promoter. Adv. Energy Mater. 2017, 7, 1700020.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  4. [4]
    Yang, F. L.; Chen, Y. T.; Cheng, G, Z.; Chen, S. L.; Luo, W. Ultrathin nitrogen-doped carbon coated with CoP for efficient hydrogen evolution. ACS Catal. 2017, 7, 3824–3831.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  5. [5]
    Long, X.; Li, G. X.; Wang, Z. L.; Zhu, H. Y.; Zhang, T.; Xiao. S.; Guo, W. Y.; Yang, S. H. Metallic iron–nickel sulfide ultrathin nanosheets as a highly active electrocatalyst for hydrogen evolution reaction in acidic media. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2015, 137, 11900–11903.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  6. [6]
    Liu, J.; Liu, Y.; Liu, N. Y.; Han, Y. Z.; Zhang, X.; Huang, H.; Lifshitz, Y.; Lee, S. T.; Zhong, J.; Kang, Z. H. Metal-free efficient photocatalyst for stable visible water splitting via a two-electron pathway. Science 2015, 347, 970–974.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  7. [7]
    Du, C.; Yang, L.; Yang, F. L.; Cheng, G. Z.; Luo, W. Nest-like NiCoP for highly efficient overall water splitting. ACS Catal. 2017, 7, 4131–4137.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  8. [8]
    Wu, Y. Y.; Liu, Y. P.; Li, G. D.; Zou, X.; Lian, X. R.; Wang, D. J.; Sun, L.; Asefa, T.; Zou, X. X. Efficient electrocatalysis of overall water splitting by ultrasmall NixCo3–xS4 coupled Ni3S2 nanosheet arrays. Nano Energy 2017, 35, 161–170.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  9. [9]
    Sun, C. C.; Dong, Q. C.; Yang, J.; Dai, Z. Y.; Lin, J. J.; Chen, P.; Huang, W.; Dong, X. C. Metal–organic framework derived CoSe2 nanoparticles anchored on carbon fibers as bifunctional electrocatalysts for efficient overall water splitting. Nano Res. 2016, 9, 2234–2243.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  10. [10]
    Wang, J.; Zhong, H. X.; Wang, Z. L.; Meng, F. L.; Zhang, X. B. Integrated three-dimensional carbon paper/carbon tubes/cobalts-sulfide sheets as an efficient electrode for overall water splitting. ACS Nano 2016, 10, 2342–2348.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  11. [11]
    Chen, P. Z.; Xu, K.; Fang, Z. W.; Tong, Y.; Wu, J. C.; Lu, X. L.; Peng, X.; Ding, H.; Wu, C. Z.; Xie, Y. Metallic Co4N porous nanowire arrays activated by surface oxidation as electrocatalysts for the oxygen evolution reaction. Angew. Chem., Int. Ed. 2015, 54, 14710–14714.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  12. [12]
    Zhang, W.; Wu, Y. Z.; Qi, J.; Chen, M. X.; Cao, R. A thin NiFe hydroxide film formed by stepwise electrodeposition strategy with significantly improved catalytic water oxidation efficiency. Adv. Energy Mater. 2017, 7, 1602547.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  13. [13]
    Wan, S. H.; Qi, J.; Zhang, W.; Wang, W. N.; Zhang, S. K.; Liu, K. Q.; Zheng, H. Q.; Sun, J. L.; Wang, S. Y.; Cao, R. Hierarchical Co(OH)F superstructure built by low-dimensional substructures for electrocatalytic water oxidation. Adv. Mater. 2017, 29, 1700286.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  14. [14]
    Chen, M. X.; Wu, Y. Z.; Han, Y. Z.; Lin, X. H.; Sun, J. L.; Zhang, W.; Cao, R. An iron-based film for highly efficient electrocatalytic oxygen evolution from neutral aqueous solution. ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces 2015, 7, 21852–21859.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  15. [15]
    Guo, D. Y.; Qi, J.; Zhang, W.; Cao, R. Surface electrochemical modification of a nickel substrate to prepare a NiFe-based electrode for water oxidation. ChemSusChem 2017, 10, 394–400.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  16. [16]
    Stern, L. A.; Feng, L. G.; Song, F.; Hu, X. L. Ni2P as a Janus catalyst for water splitting: The oxygen evolution activity of Ni2P nanoparticles. Energy Environ. Sci. 2015, 8, 2347–2351.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  17. [17]
    Xu, X.; Song, F.; Hu, X. L. A nickel iron diselenide-derived efficient oxygen-evolution catalyst. Nat. Commun. 2016, 7, 12324.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  18. [18]
    Zhao, X.; Zhang, H. T.; Yan. Y.; Cao, J. H.; Li, X. Q.; Zhou, S. M.; Peng, Z. M.; Zeng, J. Engineering the electrical conductivity of lamellar silver-doped cobalt(II) selenide nanobelts for enhanced oxygen evolution. Angew. Chem., Int. Ed. 2017, 56, 328–332.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  19. [19]
    Gong, M.; Dai, H. J. A mini review of NiFe-based materials as highly active oxygen evolution reaction electrocatalysts. Nano Res. 2015, 8, 23–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  20. [20]
    Lee, Y.; Suntivich, J.; May, K. J.; Perry, E. E.; Shao-Horn, Y. Synthesis and activities of rutile IrO2 and RuO2 nanoparticles for oxygen evolution in acid and alkaline solutions. J. Phys. Chem. Lett. 2012, 3, 399–404.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  21. [21]
    Wang, J.; Zhong, H. X.; Qin, Y. L.; Zhang, X. B. An efficient three-dimensional oxygen evolution electrode. Angew. Chem., Int. Ed. 2013, 52, 5248–5253.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  22. [22]
    Fan, X. J.; Peng, Z. W.; Ye, R. Q.; Zhou, H. Q.; Guo, X. M3C (M: Fe, Co, Ni) nanocrystals encased in graphene nanoribbons: An active and stable bifunctional electrocatalyst for oxygen reduction and hydrogen evolution reactions. ACS Nano 2015, 9, 7407–7418.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  23. [23]
    McCrory, C. C. L.; Jung, S.; Peters, J. C.; Jaramillo, T. F. Benchmarking heterogeneous electrocatalysts for the oxygen evolution reaction. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2013, 135, 16977–16987.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  24. [24]
    Masa, J.; Weide, P.; Peeters, D.; Sinev, I.; Xia, W.; Sun, Z. Y.; Somsen, C.; Muhler, M.; Schuhmann, W. Amorphous cobalt boride (Co2B) as a highly efficient nonprecious catalyst for electrochemical water splitting: Oxygen and hydrogen evolution. Adv. Energy Mater. 2016, 6, 1502313.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  25. [25]
    Yan, K.; Wu, G. S.; Jin, W. Recent advances in the synthesis of layered, double-hydroxide-based materials and their applications in hydrogen and oxygen evolution. Energy Technol. 2016, 4, 354–368.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  26. [26]
    Bai, Y. J.; Fang, L.; Xu, H. T.; Gu, X.; Zhang, H. J.; Wang, Y. Strengthened synergistic effect of metallic MxPy (M = Co, Ni, and Cu) and carbon layer via peapod-like architecture for both hydrogen and oxygen evolution reactions. Small 2017, 13, 1603718.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  27. [27]
    Yan, Y.; Xia, B. Y.; Li, N.; Xu, Z. C.; Fisher, A.; Wang, X. Vertically oriented MoS2 and WS2 nanosheets directly grown on carbon cloth as efficient and stable 3-dimensional hydrogen-evolving cathodes. J. Mater. Chem. A 2015, 3, 131–135.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  28. [28]
    Xia, C.; Jiang, Q.; Zhao, C.; Hedhili, M. N.; Alshareef, H. N. Selenide-based electrocatalysts and scaffolds for water oxidation applications. Adv. Mater. 2016, 28, 77–85.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  29. [29]
    Liu, X. B.; Liu, Y. C.; Fan, L. Z. MOF-derived CoSe2 microspheres with hollow interiors as high-performance electrocatalysts for enhanced oxygen evolution reaction. J. Mater. Chem. A 2017, 5, 15310–15314.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  30. [30]
    Sivanantham, A.; Shanmugam, S. Nickel selenide supported on nickel foam as an efficient and durable non-precious electrocatalyst for the alkaline water electrolysis. Appl. Catal. B: Environ. 2017, 203, 485–493.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  31. [31]
    Liu, T. T.; Asiri, A. M.; Sun, X. P. Electrodeposited Co-doped NiSe2 nanoparticles film: A good electrocatalyst for efficient water splitting. Nanoscale 2016, 8, 3911–3915.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  32. [32]
    Zhao, Q.; Zhong, D. Z.; Liu, L.; Li, D. D.; Hao, G. Y.; Li, J. P. Facile fabrication of robust 3D Fe-NiSe nanowires supported on nickel foam as a highly efficient, durable oxygen evolution catalyst. J. Mater. Chem. A 2017, 5, 14639–14645.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  33. [33]
    Du, Y. S.; Cheng, G. Z.; Luo, W. Colloidal synthesis of urchin-like Fe doped NiSe2 for efficient oxygen evolution. Nanoscale 2017, 9, 6821–6825.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  34. [34]
    Xie, J. F.; Zhang, H.; Li, S.; Wang, R. X.; Sun, X.; Zhou, M.; Zhou, J. F.; Lou, X. W.; Xie, Y. Defect-rich MoS2 ultrathin nanosheets with additional active edge sites for enhanced electrocatalytic hydrogen evolution. Adv. Mater. 2013, 25, 5807–5813.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  35. [35]
    You, B.; Jiang, N.; Sheng, M. L.; Bhushan, M. W.; Sun, Y. J. Hierarchically porous urchin-like Ni2P superstructures supported on nickel foam as efficient bifunctional electrocatalysts for overall water splitting. ACS Catal. 2016, 6, 714–721.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  36. [36]
    Wang, D. Y.; Gong, M.; Chou, H. L.; Pan, C. J.; Chen, H. A.; Wu, Y. P.; Lin, M. C.; Guan, M. Y.; Yang, J.; Chen, C. W. et al. Highly active and stable hybrid catalyst of cobalt-doped FeS2 nanosheets–carbon nanotubes for hydrogen evolution reaction. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2015, 137, 1587–1592.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  37. [37]
    Tian, J. Q.; Liu, Q.; Cheng, N. Y.; Asiri, A. M.; Sun, X. P. Self-supported Cu3P nanowire arrays as an integrated highperformance three-dimensional cathode for generating hydrogen from water. Angew. Chem., Int. Ed. 2014, 53, 9577–9581.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  38. [38]
    Wang, Z. Q.; Zeng, S.; Liu, W. H.; Wang, X. W.; Li, Q. W.; Zhao, Z. G.; Geng, F. X. Coupling molecularly ultrathin sheets of NiFe-layered double hydroxide on NiCo2O4 nanowire arrays for highly efficient overall water-splitting activity. ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces 2017, 9, 1488–1495.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  39. [39]
    Liu, J.; Wang, J. S.; Zhang, B.; Ruan, Y. J.; Lv, L.; Ji, X.; Xu, K.; Miao, L.; Jiang, J. J. Hierarchical NiCo2S4@NiFe LDH heterostructures supported on nickel foam for enhanced overall-water-splitting activity. ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces 2017, 9, 15364–15372.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  40. [40]
    Lu, Z. Y.; Xu, W. W.; Zhu, W.; Yang, Q.; Lei, X. D.; Liu, J. F.; Li, Y. P.; Sun, X. M.; Duan, X. Three-dimensional NiFe layered double hydroxide film for high-efficiency oxygen evolution reaction. Chem. Commun. 2014, 50, 6479–6482.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  41. [41]
    Tang, C.; Gan, L. F.; Zhang, R.; Lu, W. B.; Jiang, X. E.; Asiri, A. M.; Sun, X. P.; Wang, J.; Chen, L. Ternary Fe1–xCoxP nanowire array as a robust hydrogen evolution reaction electrocatalyst with Pt-like activity: Experimental and theoretical insight. Nano Lett. 2016, 16, 6617–6621.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  42. [42]
    Yu, J.; Li, Q. Q.; Li, Y.; Xu, C. Y.; Zhen, L.; Dravid, V. P.; Wu, J. S. Ternary metal phosphide with triple-layered structure as a low-cost and efficient electrocatalyst for bifunctional water splitting. Adv. Funct. Mater. 2016, 26, 7644–7651.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  43. [43]
    Song, J. H.; Zhu, C. Z.; Xu, B. Z.; Fu, S. F.; Engelhard, M. H.; Ye, R. F.; Du, D.; Beckman, S. P.; Lin, Y. H. Bimetallic cobalt-based phosphide zeoliticimidazolate framework: CoPx phase-dependent electrical conductivity and hydrogen atom adsorption energy for efficient overall water splitting. Adv. Energy Mater. 2017, 7, 1601555.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  44. [44]
    Chen, G. F.; Ma, T. Y.; Liu, Z. Q.; Li, N.; Su, Y. Z.; Davey, K.; Qiao, S. Z. Efficient and stable bifunctional electrocatalysts Ni/NixMy(M = P, S) for overall water splitting. Adv. Funct. Mater. 2016, 26, 3314–3323.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  45. [45]
    Chen, W.; Liu, Y. Y.; Li, Y.; Sun, J.; Qiu, Y. C.; Liu, C.; Zhou, G. M.; Cui, Y. In situ electrochemically derived nanoporous oxides from transition metal dichalcogenides for active oxygen evolution catalysts. Nano Lett. 2016, 16, 7588–7596.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  46. [46]
    Panda, C.; Menezes, P. W.; Walter, C.; Yao, S. L.; Miehlich, M. E.; Gutkin, V.; Meyer, K.; Driess, M. From a molecular 2Fe-2Se precursor to a highly efficient iron diselenide electrocatalyst for overall water splitting. Angew. Chem., Int. Ed. 2017, 56, 10506–10510.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  47. [47]
    Zhang, W.; Qi, J.; Liu, K. Q.; Cao, R. A nickel-based integrated electrode from an autologous growth strategy for highly efficient water oxidation. Adv. Energy Mater. 2016, 6, 1502489.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Copyright information

© Tsinghua University Press and Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2018

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.College of Chemistry and Molecular SciencesWuhan UniversityHubeiChina
  2. 2.Key Laboratory of Advanced Energy Materials Chemistry (Ministry of Education)Nankai UniversityTianjinChina

Personalised recommendations