In situ growth of active catalytic layer on the commercial stainless steel via a hydrothermal-assisted corrosion process for efficient oxygen evolution reaction

Abstract

Exploring a highly active and low-cost non-precious electrocatalysts for oxygen evolution reaction (OER) is a pressing challenge for the development of sustainable hydrogen energy technologies. Herein, we develop a facile hydrothermal-assisted corrosion treatment approach to transform readily available low-cost 316L-type commercial stainless steel (316L-SS) into a cost-effective self-supporting electrocatalyst for OER. The prepared electrode could achieve an outstanding catalytic activity and stability with an overpotential of 282 mV at the current density of 10 mA cm-2 for OER. Experimental and theoretical results show that a facile surface modification carried out with 316L-SS, based upon a corrosion mechanism, to corrosion-induced formation of nickel-iron hydroxides and their transformation into nickel-iron (oxy)(hydro)oxides would account for this superior performance. This work not only provides a great promise for a cost-effective, mass-production method to produce cheap, stable, and efficient electrocatalysts for OER, but also perhaps more importantly bridges traditional metal corrosion engineering and modern electrochemical energy technologies, which would offer new ideas for further electrocatalytic materials design and development.