Issue 10, 2020

Ultrafast room-temperature synthesis of porous S-doped Ni/Fe (oxy)hydroxide electrodes for oxygen evolution catalysis in seawater splitting

Abstract

Developing energy- and time-saving methods to synthesize active and stable oxygen evolving catalysts is of great significance to hydrogen production from water electrolysis, which however remains a grand challenge. Here we report a one-step approach to grow highly porous S-doped Ni/Fe (oxy)hydroxide catalysts on Ni foam in several minutes under room temperature. This ultrafast method effectively engineers the surface of Ni foam into a rough S-doped Ni/Fe (oxy)hydroxide layer, which has multiple levels of porosity and good hydrophilic features and exhibits extraordinary oxygen evolution reaction (OER) performance in both alkaline salty water and seawater electrolytes. Specifically, the S-doped Ni/Fe (oxy)hydroxide catalyst requires low overpotentials of 300 and 398 mV to deliver current densities of 100 and 500 mA cm−2, respectively, when directly used as an OER catalyst in alkaline natural seawater electrolyte. Using this OER catalyst together with an efficient hydrogen evolution reaction catalyst, we have achieved the commercially demanded current densities of 500 and 1000 mA cm−2 at low voltages of 1.837 and 1.951 V, respectively, for overall alkaline seawater electrolysis at room temperature with very good durability. This work affords a cost-efficient surface engineering method to steer commercial Ni foam into robust OER catalysts for seawater electrolysis, which has important implications for both the hydrogen economy and environmental remediation.

Graphical abstract: Ultrafast room-temperature synthesis of porous S-doped Ni/Fe (oxy)hydroxide electrodes for oxygen evolution catalysis in seawater splitting

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
25 Mac 2020
Accepted
02 Jun 2020
First published
02 Jun 2020

Energy Environ. Sci., 2020,13, 3439-3446

Ultrafast room-temperature synthesis of porous S-doped Ni/Fe (oxy)hydroxide electrodes for oxygen evolution catalysis in seawater splitting

L. Yu, L. Wu, B. McElhenny, S. Song, D. Luo, F. Zhang, Y. Yu, S. Chen and Z. Ren, Energy Environ. Sci., 2020, 13, 3439 DOI: 10.1039/D0EE00921K

To request permission to reproduce material from this article, please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

If you are an author contributing to an RSC publication, you do not need to request permission provided correct acknowledgement is given.

If you are the author of this article, you do not need to request permission to reproduce figures and diagrams provided correct acknowledgement is given. If you want to reproduce the whole article in a third-party publication (excluding your thesis/dissertation for which permission is not required) please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

Read more about how to correctly acknowledge RSC content.

Social activity

Spotlight

Advertisements