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Ternary alloy and metal oxides embedded in yolk–shell polyhedrons as bifunctional oxygen electrocatalyst

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Abstract

To improve the efficiency of oxygen electrolysis, exploiting bifunctional electrocatalysts with excellent activity and stability is extremely important due to the four-electron transfer dynamics of oxygen evolution reaction (OER) and oxygen reduction reaction (ORR). Herein, a series of yolk-shell hollow polyhedrons (YHPs) embedded with NiCoFe ternary alloy and metal oxides, which are named YHP-x (x = 1, 2, 3, 4), were reported. By controlled etching multi-layered zeolitic imidazolate frameworks and following pyrolytic integration, YHPs are endowed with mass transfer tunnels, accessible inner active sites, and good electrical conductivity. Due to the synergetic effect of the alloy, metal oxides and the yolk-shell structure, YHP-1 exhibits excellent ORR performance with a half-wave potential of 0.79 V and YHP-2 displays superior OER performance with a low overpotential of 257 mV at 10 mA cm−2. The strategy described in this work can be extended to a number of hollow/yolk-shell electrocatalysts for water splitting and metal–air batteries.

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摘要

由于析氧反应（OER）和氧还原反应（ORR）的四电子转移动力学十分迟缓，为了提高氧电解效率，开发具有优异活性和稳定性的双功能电催化剂极为重要。在这里，我们报道了一系列嵌入NiCoFe三元合金和金属氧化物的核壳中空多面体（YHPs）。通过对多层ZIF的可控蚀刻和热解，YHP集成了一系列优势。例如，传质通道，可接近的内部活性位点和良好的导电性。由于合金，金属氧化物和蛋黄壳结构的协同作用，YHP-1表现出优异的ORR性能，半波电位为0.79 V，YHP-2表现出优异的OER性能，在10 mA·cm-2的电流密度下展现出257 mV的低过电位。这项工作中采用的合成策略可以推广到许多水分解和金属空气电池的中空/核壳电催化剂的制备。

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Acknowledgements

This study was financially supported by the Program for the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. NSFC- 21901221, 21671170, 21673203 and U1904215), the Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province (No. BK20190870), Changjiang Scholars Program of the Ministry of Education (No. Q2018270) and the Top Talent Project of Yangzhou University.

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  1. Institute for Innovative Materials and Energy, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Yangzhou University, Yangzhou, 225009, China

    Yi Zhang, Jia-Dan Lu, Guang-Xun Zhang, Rong-Mei Zhu & Huan Pang

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Huan Pang is an editorial board member for Rare Metals and was not involved in the editorial review or the decision to publish this article. The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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Zhang, Y., Lu, JD., Zhang, GX. et al. Ternary alloy and metal oxides embedded in yolk–shell polyhedrons as bifunctional oxygen electrocatalyst. Rare Met. 43, 478–488 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12598-023-02485-9

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