Issue 10, 2024

Engineering 2D nickel boride/borate amorphous/amorphous heterostructures for electrocatalytic water splitting and magnetism

Abstract

The rational engineering of 2D amorphous/amorphous heterostructures is considered a promising route to finely tune the intrinsic properties of 2D nanomaterials. Herein, we demonstrate a simple strategy to engineer 2D nickel boride/borate amorphous/amorphous heterostructures using a simple one-pot chemical reduction method, and provide a detailed insight into their electrocatalytic and magnetic performance. All heterostructures exhibited the same morphology with an amorphous phase. Their nickel content was finely tuned by adjusting the concentration of sodium borohydride during synthesis. It was demonstrated that the heterostructures with the highest nickel content exhibited the highest values of measured current (12.8 nA) and lowest values of measured resistance (396 MΩ). The same heterostructure demonstrated better magnetic performance when compared to the other two heterostructures. In contrast, HER electrocatalytic activity was the highest for the heterostructure that exhibited the highest surface area (86.7 m2 g−1), with an overpotential value of 0.87 V vs. RHE at −10 mA cm−2, revealing a direct correlation with the physical dimensions of the heterostructure. This work opens up new directions in the rational engineering of 2D metal boride/borate amorphous/amorphous heterostructures, with optimal intrinsic properties for energy applications. The heterostructures can be easily upscaled to an industrial scale due to their production simplicity.

Graphical abstract: Engineering 2D nickel boride/borate amorphous/amorphous heterostructures for electrocatalytic water splitting and magnetism

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
18 yan 2024
Accepted
07 apr 2024
First published
09 apr 2024
This article is Open Access
Creative Commons BY-NC license

Sustainable Energy Fuels, 2024,8, 2125-2137

Engineering 2D nickel boride/borate amorphous/amorphous heterostructures for electrocatalytic water splitting and magnetism

X. Lin, V. Tzitzios, Q. Zhang, B. J. Rodriguez, A. Rafferty, R. Bekarevich, M. Pissas and M. V. Sofianos, Sustainable Energy Fuels, 2024, 8, 2125 DOI: 10.1039/D4SE00095A

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported Licence. You can use material from this article in other publications, without requesting further permission from the RSC, provided that the correct acknowledgement is given and it is not used for commercial purposes.

To request permission to reproduce material from this article in a commercial publication, 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 commercial 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