Se and Fe co-doping in Ni2P/Ni12P5/NF: Highly active and ultra-long stability of the oxygen evolution reaction

Abstract

Hydrogen production by water splitting is a promising hydrogen production technology, but limited by the slow OER reaction kinetics, the development of high-performance OER catalysts is urgently needed. Herein, a three-step process of hydrothermal, electrodeposition and phosphorization was carried out to grow nanoparticulate Se, Fe-Ni2P/Ni12P5 on NF (Se, Fe-NiP/NF) in this work. The catalyst exhibits excellent OER electrocatalytic performance, requiring an overpotential of only 225 mV to achieve a current density of 10 mA·cm−2 with a Tafel slope of only 33 mV · dec−1, and can maintain stability for more than 100 h under alkaline conditions. Remarkably, the surface of the nanoparticles after stability testing was rougher, exposing many very small nanoflakes thus exposing more active sites, which is responsible for its extremely long time stability. The results show that the co-doping of Se and Fe can effectively reduce the energy barrier of electrocatalytic reactions and improve the morphology, which provides a new approach to explore high-performance and corrosion-resistant electrocatalysts.