Activity and Selectivity of Ni-Fe Layered Double Hydroxide Electrocatalyst for Seawater Electrolysis

Abstract

Electrochemistry will play a critical role in the development of future sustainable energy storage and conversion technologies, where new functional nanocatalyst materials are the key components for application in fuel cells and electrolyzers. In this context, the generation of hydrogen and oxygen from seawater electrolysis is an attractive process for fuel production since the majority of liquid water available to mankind at the earth's surface is salty water [1]. Unfortunately, chlorine evolution reaction (CER) is a competing reaction to oxygen evolution reaction (OER) when seawater is used as electrolyte. Although OER is thermodynamically favored over CER, the poor kinetics of the OER makes CER the dominant reaction in many catalytic systems. NiFe layered double hydroxide (LDH) has been reported to catalyze the OER reaction in alkaline media at low overpotentials comparable with the performance of noble metals catalysts [2]. In our study, its activity and stability for seawater oxidation have been investigated with a rotating disk electrode in chloride containing electrolytes with basic and slightly basic pH. The electrochemical experiments are combined with products analysis (Figure 1) in order to estimate the selectivity for oxygen evolution. In particular, CER and hypochlorite formation are investigated by an in-line quadrupole mass spectrometer (QMS) and iodometric titration respectively. NiFe LDH shows a high selectivity for OER in alkaline electrolytes (pH 13) containing 0.5 M NaCl, a chloride ions concentration typical of seawater. In 0.3 M borate buffer (pH 9.2) with 0.5 M NaCl the electrochemical experiments show degradation in performance at current densities approaching 10 mA/cm2, despite the high selectivity at lower current densities. This degradation of the anodic current is not observed in pH 13 (0.1 M KOH) in the presence of the same concentration of NaCl.