W-induced morphological modification of NiFe layered double hydroxides as efficient electrocatalysts for overall water splitting

Lei Ding, Kui Li, Zhiqiang Xie, Gaoqiang Yang, Shule Yu, Weitian Wang, David A. Cullen, Haoran Yu, Feng Yuan Zhang

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

42 Scopus citations

Abstract

Layered double hydroxides (LDHs) are one of the most efficient electrocatalysts for water splitting due to their nanosheet features and compositional flexibilities. This work explored the impact of W precursor concentration (0 ∼ 10 mM) on LDH morphologies and performance in hydrogen production. Using an electrodeposition W-doping process, W-induced NiFe LDHs (NiFeW-LDHs) were in-situ grown on carbon fiber papers for water splitting. A performance peak was found at a W doping of 5 mM with well-aligned nanosheets, which not only boosted the charge transfer ability and gas evolution but also offered more than a four-fold electrochemical surface area increase compared to film-like NiFe hydroxides. The NiFeW-LDHs exhibited remarkable performance compared to NiFe hydroxides, showing decreased overpotentials of 31 mV and 114 mV for the oxygen evolution reactions (OERs) and hydrogen evolution reactions (HERs) at 10 mA/cm2 and -10 mA/cm2, respectively, in alkaline media. The performance enhancement at 5 mM W-doping was linked to the well-aligned NiFeW-LDH nanosheets; smaller, less-textured nanosheets were observed with lower or higher W precursor concentrations (2.5 mM or >7.5 mM), leading to inferior OER and HER performances. Hence, an appropriate W doping is crucial to generating the morphologies that contribute to the higher performance of NiFeW-LDHs.

Original languageEnglish
Article number139199
JournalElectrochimica Acta
Volume395
DOIs
StatePublished - Nov 1 2021

Funding

The authors greatly appreciate the support from the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) under the Fuel Cell Technologies Office Award Number DE-EE0008426 and DE-EE0008423 , and National Energy Technology Laboratory under Award DE-FE0011585. A portion of the research was performed as part of a user project through the Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences, which is a U.S. DOE Office of Science User Facility. The authors also wish to express their appreciation to Alexander Terekhov, Douglas Warnberg, and Dr. Brian Canfield for their help.

Keywords

  • Bifunctional electrocatalysts
  • Hydrogen evolution reaction
  • Overall water splitting
  • Oxygen evolution reaction
  • W-induced NiFe-LDHs

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