Template confined strategy for constructing nickel cobalt selenide nanoarrays for efficient oxygen evolution reaction

Abstract

Developing high-efficient and earth-abundant metals for the oxygen evolution reaction catalyst is of significant and promising but still challenging. Prussian blue analogs (PBAs) show great potential for the dispersion and exposure of OER catalysts due to their adjustable element compositions and easily decomposable structures. Herein, bimetallic Ni–Co Prussian blue analogs grown on the conductive nickel foam supported by Ni(OH)2 nanosheets are designed and constructed. Firstly, the uniform dispersion of Ni–Co Prussian blue analogs has been realized on the surface of NF. By means of the confined decomposition of PBAs at calcination temperature, NiSe2/CoSe with the smaller particle size and good dispersion supported on NF can provide the more active sites when containing high electron transfer rate. The oxygen evolution reaction (OER) measurements show that the as-prepared NiSe2/CoSe/NF exhibits the very impressive OER activity with low overpotential of 270 mV to reach the current density of 100 mA/cm2. The special nanoarrays structure, abundant active sites and high intrinsic activity may contribute to the excellent performance. The synergistic effect of nickel-cobalt selenide and support enable superior stability toward OER. This confined decomposition strategy may provide a promising way to controlled assembly of transition metal-based electrocatalyst for OER.