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Multiscale manipulating induced flexible heterogeneous V-NiFe2O4@Ni2P electrocatalyst for efficient and durable oxygen evolution reaction

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Abstract

Water electrolysis is severely impeded by the kinetically sluggish oxygen evolution reaction (OER) due to its inherent multistep four-electron transfer mechanism. However, designing advanced OER electrocatalysts with abundant active sites, robust stability, and low cost remains a huge challenge. Herein, a facile and versatile multiscale manipulating strategy was proposed to construct a novel V-NiFe2O4@Ni2P heterostructure self-supported on Ni foam (V-NiFe2O4@Ni2P/NF). In such unique architecture, the intrinsic OER catalytic activity was greatly boosted by the in-situ generated heterogeneous Ni2P phase induced by precisely selective phosphorylation of the NiFe-precursor, while the synchronous metal V doping stimulated the activity via modulating the electronic configuration, thus synergistically promoting its OER kinetics. In addition, the binder-free catalyst built from three-dimensional (3D) nanosheet arrays (NSs) can offer a large active surface for efficient charge/mass transfer and a robust scaffold for the integrated structure. The as-prepared flexible electrode exhibited superior OER activity with an ultra-low overpotential of 230 mV at 50 mA·cm−2 and outstanding long-term stability for 40 h. This discovery is expected to provide an opportunity to explore efficient and stable commercial materials for scalable, efficient, and robust electrochemical hydrogen (H2) production.

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Acknowledgements

This work is supported by the Natural Science Foundation of Hubei Province, China (Nos. 2019CFB569 and 2020CFB430), the Science and Technology Foundation for Creative Research Group of Hubei Normal University, China (No. 2019CZ08).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Hubei Key Laboratory of Pollutant Analysis & Reuse Technology, College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Hubei Normal University, Huangshi, 435002, China

    Siran Xu, Xin Yu, Li Luo, Wenjing Li, Yeshuang Du & Qi Wu

  2. College of Mechanical Engineering, Chengdu University, Chengdu, 610106, China

    Qingquan Kong

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  1. Siran Xu
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  2. Xin Yu
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  3. Li Luo
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  4. Wenjing Li
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  7. Qi Wu
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Correspondence to Qi Wu.

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Multiscale manipulating induced flexible heterogeneous V-NiFe2O4@Ni2P electrocatalyst for efficient and durable oxygen evolution reaction

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Xu, S., Yu, X., Luo, L. et al. Multiscale manipulating induced flexible heterogeneous V-NiFe2O4@Ni2P electrocatalyst for efficient and durable oxygen evolution reaction. Nano Res. 15, 4942–4949 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-021-4024-5

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