The development of efficient and robust earth‐abundant electrocatalysts for the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) is an ongoing challenge. Here, a novel and stable trimetallic NiFeCr layered double hydroxide (LDH) electrocatalyst for improving OER kinetics is rationally designed and synthesized. Electrochemical testing of a series of trimetallic NiFeCr LDH materials at similar catalyst loading and electrochemical surface area shows that the molar ratio Ni:Fe:Cr = 6:2:1 exhibits the best intrinsic OER catalytic activity compared to other NiFeCr LDH compositions. Furthermore, these nanostructures are directly grown on conductive carbon paper for a high surface area 3D electrode that can achieve a catalytic current density of 25 mA cm−2at an overpotential as low as 225 mV and a small Tafel slope of 69 mV dec−1in alkaline electrolyte. The optimized NiFeCr catalyst is stable under OER conditions and X‐ray photoelectron spectroscopy, electron paramagnetic resonance spectroscopy, and elemental analysis confirm the stability of trimetallic NiFeCr LDH after electrochemical testing. Due to the synergistic interactions among the metal centers, trimetallic NiFeCr LDH is significantly more active than NiFe LDH and among the most active OER catalysts to date. This work also presents general strategies to design more efficient metal oxide/hydroxide OER electrocatalysts.
Catalyzing water dissociation (WD) into protons and hydroxide ions is important both for fabricating bipolar membranes (BPMs) that can couple different pH environments into a single electrochemical device and for accelerating electrocatalytic reactions that consume protons in neutral to alkaline media. We designed a BPM electrolyzer to quantitatively measure WD kinetics and show that, for metal nanoparticles, WD activity correlates with alkaline hydrogen evolution reaction activity. By combining metal-oxide WD catalysts that are efficient near the acidic proton-exchange layer with those efficient near the alkaline hydroxide-exchange layer, we demonstrate a BPM driving WD with overpotentials of <10 mV at 20 mA·cm−2and pure water BPM electrolyzers that operate with an alkaline anode and acidic cathode at 500 mA·cm−2with a total electrolysis voltage of ~2.2 V.
more » « less- NSF-PAR ID:
- 10198205
- Publisher / Repository:
- American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Science
- Volume:
- 369
- Issue:
- 6507
- ISSN:
- 0036-8075
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- p. 1099-1103
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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Abstract The development of non‐noble metal materials for efficient hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) in wide pH range is still a challenge at present. Herein, a predesigned polyoxometalate (POM)‐based metal–organic polymer {L3Co2 · 6H2O}[H3GeMo12O40] · 9H2O (L = 1,2,4‐triazole) is employed as bimetallic source together with thiourea converting to CoS2@MoS2on carbon cloth (CC) (abbreviated to CoS2@MoS2@CC) for the first time. Impressively, the CoS2@MoS2in the form of vertically interconnected nanoarrays with multiple interfaces are grown in situ on CC and act as electrodes directly for HER. The CoS2@MoS2@CC‐30h composite exhibits superb activity and long‐durability in both acidic and alkaline media. Low overpotential is achieved in 0.5
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