Issue 26, 2023

Low-temperature pyrolysis enables FeNi3 nanoparticle implanted N-doped carbon nanosheets as an efficient bifunctional electrocatalyst for overall water splitting

Abstract

The creation of highly efficient and stable OER/HER bifunctional electrocatalysts is vital to advancing the practical application of electrocatalytic water splitting. Herein, we propose a facile yet reliable approach to produce FeNi3 nanoparticle (NP) implanted N-doped carbon nanosheets (denoted as FeNi3/NCS) as a powerful bifunctional catalyst towards electrocatalytic water splitting. Specifically, a melamine tube is first synthesized via a hydrothermal method, which is utilized as a self-supporting template to grow FeNi-LDH, yielding melamine tube@FeNi-LDH. Sequentially, the FeNi3 NP embedded N-doped carbon nanosheets are achieved by low-temperature pyrolysis of melamine tube@FeNi-LDH at 400 °C. The resulting FeNi3/NCS electrocatalyst displays outstanding OER/HER catalytic performance and stability in alkaline media. The overpotential for the OER is 260 mV, outperforming the control samples of NCT, FeNiO/C, FeNi/NC and even benchmark RuO2 (300 mV). The HER overpotential is also significantly reduced compared with the control samples. The impressive bifunctional activity of FeNi3/NCS is primarily attributed to the synergistic effect between FeNi3 NPs and N-doped carbon, which is substantiated by both experimental results (i.e., overpotential and XPS) and DFT simulation (i.e., Gibbs free energy, electron density difference, etc.). The FeNi3/NCS-assembled water splitting device requires only 1.53 V of cell voltage to drive a current density of 10 mA cm−2, surpassing the counterparts of RuO2–Pt/C, NCT, FeNiO/C, and various reported FeNi-containing electrocatalysts. The combination of hydrothermal and low-temperature pyrolysis strategies will shed light on the design and preparation of LDH-derived high-performance and stable bifunctional electrocatalysts for overall water splitting.

Graphical abstract: Low-temperature pyrolysis enables FeNi3 nanoparticle implanted N-doped carbon nanosheets as an efficient bifunctional electrocatalyst for overall water splitting

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
27 Marts 2023
Accepted
25 Maijs 2023
First published
25 Maijs 2023

J. Mater. Chem. A, 2023,11, 14015-14024

Low-temperature pyrolysis enables FeNi3 nanoparticle implanted N-doped carbon nanosheets as an efficient bifunctional electrocatalyst for overall water splitting

R. Xin, Y. Liu, X. Li, S. Yi, M. Zhang, H. Chen, H. Li and Z. Lin, J. Mater. Chem. A, 2023, 11, 14015 DOI: 10.1039/D3TA01819A

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