Polyoxometalate-incorporated NiFe-based oxyhydroxides for enhanced oxygen evolution reaction in alkaline media

Abstract

NiFe-based oxyhydroxides are promising electrocatalysts for the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) in alkaline media, but further enhancing their OER performance remains a significant challenge. Herein, we in situ incorporated polyoxometalates into NiFe oxyhydroxides to form a homogeneous/heterogeneous hybrid material, which induces the electronic interaction between Ni, Fe and Mo sites, as revealed by a variety of characterization experiments and theoretical calculations. The resulting hybrid electrocatalyst delivers a low overpotential of 203 mV at 10 mA cm⁻² and a TOF of 2.34 s⁻¹ at 1.53 V in alkaline media. This work presents a critical step towards developing high-performance OER catalysts by constructing metal–POM hybrids.