Interface Electronic Engineering of Nickel Foam-Supported Fe₂O₃/V₂CTₓ Heterostructure for Efficient Oxygen Evolution Reaction

Abstract

Although non-precious Fe2O3 catalysts are abundant in reserves and have excellent corrosion resistance, their inherent problems of low activity and poor electrical conductivity have long plagued them, severely restricting their practical application in the oxygen evolution reaction (OER). To address these challenges, we developed a highly efficient and stable Fe2O3/V2CTx heterostructure directly anchored on nickel foam (NF) through an innovative in situ interface engineering strategy. The introduction of two-dimensional V2CTx not only provides a highly conductive scaffold that enables rapid charge transfer, but also acts as an electronic modulator to optimize the reaction kinetics of Fe active sites via strong interfacial electronic coupling. As a result, the Fe2O3/V2CTx heterostructure exhibits exceptional OER performance, significantly outperforming its individual components, with a low overpotential of 271 mV at 10 mA cm⁻² and a Tafel slope of 89.4 mV dec⁻¹. Moreover, it demonstrates long-term stability, maintaining activity for over 90 hours at 100 mA cm⁻². This study elucidates the synergistic electronic interaction at the Fe2O3/V2CTx interface, offering a scalable design strategy for high-performance transition metal-based OER electrocatalysts and paving the way for the practical implementation of non-precious metal catalysts.