Issue 18, 2022

Increasing oxygen vacancies in CeO2 nanocrystals by Ni doping and reduced graphene oxide decoration towards electrocatalytic hydrogen evolution

Abstract

Oxygen vacancy (VO) engineering has proved to be an effective approach for improving the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) performance of low-cost metal oxide electrocatalysts. Cerium dioxide (CeO2), an abundant rare-earth metal oxide, is famous for its easy formation of VO and high oxygen mobility, which is believed to be conducive to its application in electrocatalytic HER. Herein, this study reports a facile modification strategy using rGO as a conductive support for CeO2 nanocrystals and introducing the transition metal Ni as the active dopant, resulting in the construction of the Ni–rGO/CeO2 electrocatalyst. It is found that rGO decoration prevents the aggregation of CeO2 NCs and increases the VO concentration in the CeO2 nanocrystals as well, while the introduced Ni leads to further formation of VO and serves as the active site for the HER reaction. Thus, the Ni–rGO/CeO2 electrocatalyst shows relatively low overpotential, a low Tafel slope, and great stability for HER, which is attributed to the synergistic effect of rGO decoration and Ni doping. This kind of facile strategy is promising for the design of noble-metal-free and low-cost electrocatalysts by the functional modification of CeO2-based nanocatalysts.

Graphical abstract: Increasing oxygen vacancies in CeO2 nanocrystals by Ni doping and reduced graphene oxide decoration towards electrocatalytic hydrogen evolution

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
15 Feb 2022
Accepted
28 Mar 2022
First published
30 Mar 2022

CrystEngComm, 2022,24, 3369-3379

Increasing oxygen vacancies in CeO2 nanocrystals by Ni doping and reduced graphene oxide decoration towards electrocatalytic hydrogen evolution

Y. Xu, X. Hao, X. Zhang, T. Wang, Z. Hu, Y. Chen, X. Feng, W. Liu, F. Hao, X. Kong, C. He, S. Ma and B. Xu, CrystEngComm, 2022, 24, 3369 DOI: 10.1039/D2CE00209D

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