Heterogeneous Fe-doped Ni(OH)2 grown on nickel mesh by electrodeposition for efficient alkaline oxygen evolution reaction.

Abstract

Designing highly excellent and stable catalysts for alkaline oxygen evolution reaction (OER) is gradually pivotal for clean energy development. In this work, a heterogeneous Fe-doped Ni(OH)2 (Ni/Fe-0.1) was developed via simple one-step electrodeposition onto nickel mesh. The heterogeneous interface structure generates sufficient active sites, significantly improving OER performance with an overpotential of 174 mV at 10 mA cm-2 (η10), while Tafel slope is only 43.0 mV dec-1. In particular, Ni/Fe-0.1 is still able to operate stably at a current density of 1 A cm-2 for 100 h without obvious potential decay. The oxidation of Ni2+ to Ni3+ was detected by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, proving that the heterogeneous catalyst could stabilize the high-valence state of nickel as active sites to its superior OER performance. This work provides a convenient synthetic strategy forforming heterogeneous catalysts toward efficient water electrolysis.