Issue 21, 2025

An electronic structure tailored all non-precious Zn-promoted FeCo alloy anchored on a porous N-doped carbon aerogel by thermal reduction for boosting the oxygen evolution reaction

Abstract

The development of cost-effective and highly active electrocatalysts for the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) is essential for advancing clean energy and energy storage systems. Herein, we prepared a novel Zn-promoted FeCo alloy anchored on an N-doped carbon aerogel (Zn-FeCo@NCA) derived from cellulose aerogel as an efficient and stable electrocatalyst using high-temperature carbothermal reduction. This process provides a solution to the problem of limiting the industrialization of metal aerogels by employing traditional chemical reductants and enhances cost-effectiveness due to the use of non-precious metals. The Zn-FeCo@NCA aerogel displays excellent OER activity with a low overpotential of 270 mV (10 mA cm−2) and a high mass activity of 0.429 A mg−1, surpassing most commercial precious metal catalysts. Electrochemical in situ Raman spectroscopy indicates that Zn-FeCo@NCA undergoes self-reconfiguration during the OER to form CoOOH as a truly catalytically active species. Moreover, density functional theory (DFT) calculations further demonstrate that this modulated electronic structure favors the reduction of the adsorption energy of the intermediate O*, thereby accelerating the electron transfer kinetics and enhancing the OER activity. When integrated into an anion-exchange membrane water electrolyzer (AEMWE), the Zn-FeCo@NCA anode achieves a current density of 1000 mA cm−2 at 2.18 V per cell, outperforming commercial RuO2. In conclusion, benefiting from the optimized electronic interactions between Zn-promoted FeCo alloys and N-doped carbon aerogels, as well as the “pearl-like” hierarchical structure, large specific surface area, and high electrical conductivity, Zn-FeCo@NCA is expected to be an ideal candidate for the anode of AEMWEs.

Graphical abstract: An electronic structure tailored all non-precious Zn-promoted FeCo alloy anchored on a porous N-doped carbon aerogel by thermal reduction for boosting the oxygen evolution reaction

Supplementary files

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Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
06 Mar 2025
Accepted
14 Apr 2025
First published
28 Apr 2025

J. Mater. Chem. A, 2025,13, 16018-16031

An electronic structure tailored all non-precious Zn-promoted FeCo alloy anchored on a porous N-doped carbon aerogel by thermal reduction for boosting the oxygen evolution reaction

Y. Bai, J. Lu, Y. Qi, Y. Shao, R. Xie, X. Wu, X. Shen, S. Cui and Z. Wu, J. Mater. Chem. A, 2025, 13, 16018 DOI: 10.1039/D5TA01857A

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