Controllable synthesis of self-templated hierarchical Ni3S2@N-doped carbon for enhanced oxygen evolution reaction

Abstract

Rational construction of self-supporting electrodes has been extensively investigated in energy conversion and storage. In this work, hierarchical N-doped carbon-encapsulated Ni₃S₂ grown on a 3D porous Ni foam (H-Ni₃S₂@NC/NF) was controllably synthesized by a one-pot self-templated solvothermal method. Herein, we highlight the self-templated growth of multilayered Ni₃S₂ with N-doped carbon intercalation at a certain temperature. The unique H-Ni₃S₂@NC/NF shows enhanced active sites and a modulated electronic structure, which facilitates mass/electron transport. Thereby, the H-Ni₃S₂@NC outperforms a lower overpotential of 238 mV at 10 mA cm⁻² and a low Tafel slope of 62 mV dec⁻¹ than that of binary and ternary metal sulfides, suggesting an excellent mono-metal sulfide as a self-supporting electrode for oxygen evolution reaction.