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Economical Fe-doped Ta2O5 electrocatalyst toward efficient oxygen evolution: a combined experimental and first-principles study

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Abstract

A non-precious metal catalytic system of Fe-doped Ta2O5 is developed by pulsed laser deposition toward efficient oxygen evolution reaction (OER). The optimal Fe concentration is determined to be 5 at.%for optimized OER activity via a series of electrochemical characterizations. The 5 at.% Fe-doped Ta2O5 nanolayer possesses a low onset overpotential of 0.22 V, an overpotential of 0.38 V at 10 mA/cm2 and a Tafel slope of 54 mV/dec. Comprehensive first-principles calculations attribute the enhanced OER activity to the substitutional FeTa dopants, which generate a new active OER site on surface and simultaneously accelerate electron transfer over oxygens.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

A. L. would like to acknowledge the financial support from Natural Science Foundation of Hubei Province (Grant no. 2013CFC104). J. D. is grateful for the financial support from the National Research Foundation (NRF-CRP16-2015-01) and NUS Strategic Fund (R261-509-001-646). W. X. performs the first-principles calculations.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Materials and Metallurgy, Hubei Polytechnic University, Huangshi Hubei Province, 435003, People’s Republic of China

    Aihong Liu

  2. Department of Materials Science and Engineering, National University of Singapore, Singapore, 117575, Singapore

    Zhe Chen, Xiangxia Wei, Wen Xiao & Jun Ding

Authors
  1. Aihong Liu
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  2. Zhe Chen
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  3. Xiangxia Wei
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  4. Wen Xiao
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  5. Jun Ding
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Correspondence to Jun Ding.

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The supplementary material for this article can be found at https://doi.org/10.1557/mrc.2017.55

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Liu, A., Chen, Z., Wei, X. et al. Economical Fe-doped Ta2O5 electrocatalyst toward efficient oxygen evolution: a combined experimental and first-principles study. MRS Communications 7, 563–569 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1557/mrc.2017.55

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