Issue 28, 2017

In situ surface engineering of nickel inverse opal for enhanced overall electrocatalytic water splitting

Abstract

High-efficiency non-precious catalysts are important for hydrogen and oxygen evolution reactions (HER and OER). Practical water splitting needs not only intrinsically active catalyst materials but also the maximization of their electrocatalytic capability in a real electrolyzer. Here, we report for the first time a Ni/Ni2P inverse opal architecture fabricated by surface engineering. The superior HER properties are enabled by maximum active crystallographic plane exposure and vertical alignment of Ni2P nanosheets on nickel inverse opal. It requires an overpotential of only 73 mV to drive a HER current density of −20 mA cm−2. After doping with Fe, the resulting Fe:Ni/Ni2P inverse electrode shows excellent OER performance with a very low overpotential (285 mV) at a current density of 20 mA cm−2. An alkaline electrolyzer using the two 3D structured electrodes could split water at 20 mA cm−2 with a low voltage of ∼1.52 V for 100 h. The catalytic activity is even superior to that of the noble metal catalyst couple (IrO2–Pt/C). This work provides a surface engineered opal structure to maximize the electrocatalyst properties in the systems with coupled electron transfer and mass transport.

Graphical abstract: In situ surface engineering of nickel inverse opal for enhanced overall electrocatalytic water splitting

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
07 Apr 2017
Accepted
14 Jun 2017
First published
15 Jun 2017

J. Mater. Chem. A, 2017,5, 14873-14880

In situ surface engineering of nickel inverse opal for enhanced overall electrocatalytic water splitting

Q. Zhou, J. Pu, X. Sun, C. Zhu, J. Li, J. Wang, S. Chang and H. Zhang, J. Mater. Chem. A, 2017, 5, 14873 DOI: 10.1039/C7TA03044D

To request permission to reproduce material from this article, please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

If you are an author contributing to an RSC publication, you do not need to request permission provided correct acknowledgement is given.

If you are the author of this article, you do not need to request permission to reproduce figures and diagrams provided correct acknowledgement is given. If you want to reproduce the whole article in a third-party publication (excluding your thesis/dissertation for which permission is not required) please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

Read more about how to correctly acknowledge RSC content.

Social activity

Spotlight

Advertisements