Amazing enhancement of OER performances: creating a well-designed functional Ni and N-doped carbon layer as a support material for fabricating a NiFe-LDH electrocatalyst

Abstract

A well-designed support material between catalyst and substrate can always significantly enhance the performance of an electrode on water oxidation. In this work, a functional Ni and N-doped carbon layer (NNC) was designed on carbon paper (CP) via pyrolysis by using a controlled electrodeposited polyporphyrin as a precursor. Consequently, the fabricated NiFe-LDH/NNC/CP achieved a catalytic current density of 100 mA cm⁻² at a small overpotential of 231 mV with a low Tafel slope of 26.0 mV dec⁻¹, as well as high durability for more than 360 h. The insights are that N-doping reinforces the hydrophilicity and the catalyst binding capacity, while Ni-doping intensifies the conductivity.