Fe-induced crystalline–amorphous interface engineering of a NiMo-based heterostructure for enhanced water oxidation

Abstract

Engineering heterostructures with a unique surface/interface structure is one of the effective strategies to develop highly active noble-metal-free catalysts for the oxygen evolution reaction (OER), because the surface/interface of catalysts is the main site for the OER. Herein, we design a coralloid NiMo(Fe)-20 catalyst with a crystalline–amorphous interface through combining a hydrothermal method and an Fe-induced surface reconfiguration strategy. That is, after Fe³⁺ impregnation treatment, the Ni(OH)₂–NiMoO₄ pre-catalyst with a complete crystalline surface is restructured into a trimetallic heterostructure with a crystalline–amorphous interface, which facilitates mass diffusion and charge transfer during the OER. As expected, self-supported NiMo(Fe)-20 exhibits excellent electrocatalytic water oxidation performance (overpotential: η₋₁₀ = 220 mV, η₋₁₀₀ = 239 mV) in the alkaline electrolyte, and its electrocatalytic performance hardly changes after maintaining the current density of 50 mA cm⁻² for 10 hours. Furthermore, nickel foam (NF) supported commercial Pt/C and self-supported NiMo(Fe)-20 served as the cathode and anode of the Pt/C‖NiMo(Fe)-20 electrolyzer, respectively, which exhibits a lower cell voltage (E₋₁₀₀ = 1.53 V) than that of the Pt/C‖RuO₂ electrolyzer (E₋₁₀₀ = 1.58 V) assembled with noble metal-based catalysts. The enhanced electrocatalytic performance of the NiMo(Fe)-20 catalyst is mainly attributed to the synergistic effect between the crystalline–amorphous interface and the coralloid trimetallic heterostructure.