FeCoNi Sulfides Derived From In situ Sulfurization of Precursor Oxides as Oxygen Evolution Reaction Catalyst.

Wanqing Teng,Caifeng Ding,Mengtian Huo,Xiangjiang Zheng,Zhaomei Sun,Shusheng Zhang,Wenrong Yang

doi:10.3389/fchem.2020.00334

Abstract

It is highly promising to design and develop efficient and economical electrocatalysts for oxygen evolution reaction (OER) in alkaline solution. In this work, we prepare FeCoNi sulfide composites (including FeS, Co3S4, and Ni3S4) derived from in situ sulfurization of precursor oxides on carbon cloth (CC), which are used to become an OER catalyst. Such catalyst shows excellent OER performance, low overpotential, small Tafel slope, and high electrochemical stability, and it is a promising electrocatalyst for OER in alkaline media.

Highlights

The excessive consumption of fossil energy and the resulting serious environmental problems have triggered strong demand for renewable alternative energy (Chow et al, 2003; Zheng et al, 2014)
For better structural analysis of the product, the powder of the precursor oxides and sulfide products scrapped from carbon cloth (CC) are characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD) again
Considered that Co and Ni are in the precursor, we name the precursor as FeCoNi-FeOOH

Summary

Introduction

The excessive consumption of fossil energy and the resulting serious environmental problems have triggered strong demand for renewable alternative energy (Chow et al, 2003; Zheng et al, 2014). Hydrogen energy is regarded as a clean and ideal energy carrier that could replace fossil energy (Dresselhaus and Thomas, 2001; Zheng et al, 2017, 2018b). Hydrogen evolution is seriously restricted by anodic water oxidation due to the multielectron transfer process and high activation energy barrier (Yin et al, 2010; Yang et al, 2017; Ke et al, 2018; Zheng et al, 2018a; Tang et al, 2019). Efficient catalysts to reduce activation energy should be developed to boost the water oxidation process. Noble metal oxides (RuO2 and IrO2) exhibit excellent catalytic characters in oxygen evolution reaction (OER), but their widespread applications are limited due to scarce resources and high costs (Lee et al, 2012; Reier et al, 2012). It is necessary to develop efficient and economical OER electrocatalysts

Methods

Results

Conclusion