Facile formation of Zn-incorporated NiFe layered double hydroxide as highly-efficient oxygen evolution catalyst

Abstract

Electrochemical water splitting is the primary method to produce green hydrogen, which is considered an efficient alternative to fossil fuels for achieving carbon neutrality. For meeting the increasing market demand for green hydrogen, high-efficiency, low-cost, and large-scale electrocatalysts are crucial. In this study, we report a simple spontaneous corrosion and cyclic voltammetry (CV) activation method to fabricate Zn-incorporated NiFe layered double hydroxide (LDH) on commercial NiFe foam, which shows excellent oxygen evolution reaction (OER) performance. The electrocatalyst achieves an overpotential of 565 mV and outstanding stability of up to 112 h at 400 mA cm−2. The active layer for OER is shown to be β-NiFeOOH according to the results of in-situ Raman. Our findings suggest that the NiFe foam treated by simple spontaneous corrosion has promising industrial applications as a highly efficient OER catalyst.