Abstract
Although a number of nonprecious materials can exhibit catalytic activity approaching (sometimes even outperforming) that of iridium oxide catalysts for the oxygen evolution reaction, their catalytic lifetimes rarely exceed more than several hundred hours under operating conditions. Here we develop an energy-efficient, cost-effective, scaled-up corrosion engineering method for transforming inexpensive iron substrates (e.g., iron plate and iron foam) into highly active and ultrastable electrodes for oxygen evolution reaction. This synthetic method is achieved via a desired corrosion reaction of iron substrates with oxygen in aqueous solutions containing divalent cations (e.g., nickel) at ambient temperature. This process results in the growth on iron substrates of thin film nanosheet arrays that consist of iron-containing layered double hydroxides, instead of rust. This inexpensive and simple manufacturing technique affords iron-substrate-derived electrodes possessing excellent catalytic activities and activity retention for over 6000 hours at 1000 mA cm-2 current densities.
Highlights
A number of nonprecious materials can exhibit catalytic activity approaching that of iridium oxide catalysts for the oxygen evolution reaction, their catalytic lifetimes rarely exceed more than several hundred hours under operating conditions
We show that iron corrosion is not necessarily harmful for the properties of a material, and meticulous corrosion engineering can endow the material with useful functionalities that are not achievable by other methods
The well-designed iron corrosion is readily realized via immersing iron substrates in an aqueous solution containing a certain amount of divalent cations (e.g., Ni2 +, Co2+, Mn2+, or Mg2+) at ambient temperature
Summary
A number of nonprecious materials can exhibit catalytic activity approaching (sometimes even outperforming) that of iridium oxide catalysts for the oxygen evolution reaction, their catalytic lifetimes rarely exceed more than several hundred hours under operating conditions. We develop an energy-efficient, cost-effective, scaled-up corrosion engineering method for transforming inexpensive iron substrates (e.g., iron plate and iron foam) into highly active and ultrastable electrodes for oxygen evolution reaction. This synthetic method is achieved via a desired corrosion reaction of iron substrates with oxygen in aqueous solutions containing divalent cations (e.g., nickel) at ambient temperature This process results in the growth on iron substrates of thin film nanosheet arrays that consist of iron-containing layered double hydroxides, instead of rust. The stability problem becomes even more severe when the oxygen evolution electrocatalysts are forced to deliver large catalytic current densities (e.g., 1000 mA cm−2: a more practically-relevant value in water splitting devices11, 28–30.) Their deactivation during OER can be caused by various adverse microstructural evolutions of catalytic active phases, such as oxidative decomposition, structural reconstruction, metal leaching and irregular aggregation. An iron corrosion reaction that is usually considered to be negative and unwanted has never been shown to be a positive and desired one for the fabrication of LDHs-based oxygen evolution electrodes
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
