Abstract
Highly active, low-cost, and durable electrocatalysts for the water oxidation reaction are pivotal in energy conversion and storage schemes. Here we report a nitride-core, oxide-shell-armor structured FeCoNi oxynitride as an efficient oxygen evolution electrocatalyst with a homogeneous nitride (Fe 0.70 Co 0.56 Ni 0.92 N 1.0 O 0.06 ) core and an oxide (Fe 0.48 Co 0.1 Ni 0.21 N 0.05 O 1.0 ) shell. The catalyst demonstrated excellent activity for the oxygen evolution reaction with a current density of 10 mA cm -2 at a low overpotential of 0.291 V in alkaline media (1 M KOH), which is superior to the activities of commercial IrO 2 , RuO 2 , and Pt/C catalysts and comparable to those of state-of-the-art catalysts (e.g., NiFe-LDH, NiCo 2 O 4 , O-NiCoFe-LDH). Density functional theory simulations suggested that the incorporation of multiple metal elements can indeed improve the reaction energetics with a synergistic effect from the core-shell structure. This unique structure of a nitride-core with a oxide-shell presents a new form of multimetallic oxynitride with compelling performance in electrolytic oxygen evolution.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 7239-7246 |
| Number of pages | 8 |
| Journal | Nanoscale |
| Volume | 11 |
| Issue number | 15 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Apr 21 2019 |
Bibliographical note
Publisher Copyright:© 2019 The Royal Society of Chemistry.
Funding
This work was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 21676128, 21576123, 21476098 and 21471069). S. D. and H. Z. were sponsored by the Division of Chemical Sciences, Geosciences, and Biosciences, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, US Department of Energy. Electron microscopy at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (S. Z. Y.) was supported by the US Department of Energy, Office of Science, Basic Energy Sciences, Materials Sciences and Engineering Division, and was performed in part as a user proposal at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences, which is a DOE Office of Science User Facility.
| Funders | Funder number |
|---|---|
| DOE Office of Science | |
| Office of Basic Energy Sciences | |
| US Department of Energy | |
| Office of Science | |
| Basic Energy Sciences | |
| Oak Ridge National Laboratory | |
| Division of Materials Sciences and Engineering | |
| Chemical Sciences, Geosciences, and Biosciences Division | |
| National Natural Science Foundation of China | 21576123, 21471069, 21476098, 21676128 |