Cu2O-templated fabrication of Ni(OH)2·0.75H2O hollow tubes for electrocatalytic oxygen evolution reaction

Abstract

Cu2O is an ideal template material for the preparation of transition metal hydroxide/oxyhydroxides with oxygen evolution reaction (OER) enhanced catalytic performance. Here, inspired by Pearson's principle, Cu2O wires were prepared and used as a sacrificial template to prepare Ni(OH)2·0.75H2O hollow tubes (Ni(OH)2 HTs) with highly improved surface roughness. Benefiting from unique structural advantages, the Ni(OH)2 HTs showed excellent catalytic activity, rapid kinetics and a long-term stability as the OER catalyst, where an overpotential of only 207 ​mV was required to drive a current density of 10 ​mA ​cm−2, an ideal kinetics with a Tafel slope as 79.8 ​mV dec−1 was calculated, and no obvious attenuation in chronoamperometry was discovered after operation for 24 ​h. This paper provides a novel template-assisted strategy to prepare high-performance transition metal-based OER catalysts possessing hollow and tubular structures.