Amorphous Oxysulfide Reconstructed from Spinel NiCo2S4 for Efficient Water Oxidation

Abstract

The progress of effective and durable electrocatalysts for oxygen evolution reaction (OER) is urgent, which is essential to promote the overall efficiency of green hydrogen production. To improve the performance of spinel cobalt-based oxides, which serve as promising water oxidation electrocatalysts in alkaline electrolytes, most researches have been concentrated on cations modification. Here, an anionic regulation mechanism is employed to adopt sulfur(S)anion substitution to supplant NiCo2 O4 by NiCo2 S4 , which contributed to an impressive OER performance in alkali. It is revealed that the substitution of S constructs a sub-stable spinel structure that facilitates its reconstruction into active amorphous oxysulfide under OER conditions. More importantly, as the active phase in the actual reaction process, the hetero-anionic amorphous oxysulfide has an appropriately tuned electronic structure and efficient OER electrocatalytic activity. This work demonstrates a promising approach for achieving anion conditioning-based tunable structure reconstruction for robust and easy preparation spinel oxide OER electrocatalysts.