Amorphous FeNiNbPC nanoprous structure for efficient and stable electrochemical oxygen evolution

Abstract

The oxygen evolution reaction (OER) is a crucial process for water splitting. Reducing overpotential is a great challenge because of four electrons transfer and slow kinetics compared to the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER). Highly efficient and stable OER catalyst with low-cost is important for industrial hydrogen production by water splitting. Here we report a simple approach to synthesize free-standing amorphous FexNi77-xNb3P13C7 with the nanoporous structure through electrochemical dealloying. The np-Fe50Ni27Nb3P13C7 exhibits remarkable OER catalytic activity with a low overpotential of 248 mV to achieve the current density of 10 mA cm−2 in 6 M KOH solution. Also, the np-Fe50Ni27Nb3P13C7 exhibits good long-term stability. The improved OER property is due to bimetallic synergy, decreased resistance of charge transfer, nanoporous structure, amorphous nature, and the generation of NiOOH during the OER process. The free-standing amorphous catalysts with nanoporous structure via electrodealloying method provide a promising approach to boost the performance of non-noble metal OER catalysts for the applications.