Amorphous Fe-Ni-P-B-O Nanocages as Efficient Electrocatalysts for Oxygen Evolution Reaction.

Ren, Hao; Sun, Xiaoli; Du, Chengfeng; Zhao, Jin; Liu, Daobin; Fang, Wei; Kumar, Sonal; Chua, Rodney et al. · ACS Nano · 2019

basic_science · Level V

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Abstract

Electrocatalysts are one of the most important parts for oxygen evolution reaction (OER) to overcome the sluggish kinetics. Herein, amorphous Fe-Ni-P-B-O (FNPBO) nanocages as efficient OER catalysts are synthesized by a simple low-cost and scalable method at room temperature. The samples are chemically stable, in clear contrast to reported unstable or even pyrophoric boride samples. The Fe/Ni ratio of the FNPBO nanocages can be continuously adjusted to optimize the OER catalytic performance. The FNPBO nanocages composed of multicomponent elements can weaken the metal-metal bonds, thus rearranging the electron density around the catalytic metal atom centers and reducing the energy barrier for intermediate formation. Hence the optimized FNPBO (Fe<sub>6.4</sub>Ni<sub>16.1</sub>P<sub>12.9</sub>B<sub>4.3</sub>O<sub>60.2</sub>) catalyst shows superior intrinsic electrocatalytic activity for OER. The low overpotential to afford the current density of 10 mA cm<sup>-2</sup> (236 mV), the small Tafel slope (39 mV dec<sup>-1</sup>), and the high specific current density (26.44 mA cm<sup>-2</sup>) at a given overpotential of 300 mV make a sharp contrast to state-of-the-art RuO<sub>2</sub> (327 mV, 136 mV dec<sup>-1</sup>, and 0.028 mA cm<sup>-2</sup>, respectively).