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Enhanced electrocatalytic hydrogen evolution activity of nickel foam by low-temperature-oxidation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 December 2017

Binhong He ,
Yafei Kuang ,
Zhaohui Hou ,
Minjie Zhou  and
Xiaobo Chen
Binhong He*
Affiliation:
College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Hunan University, Changsha 410012, People’s Republic of China; and School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Hunan Institute of Science and Technology, Yueyang 414006, People’s Republic of China
Yafei Kuang*
Affiliation:
College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Hunan University, Changsha 410012, People’s Republic of China
Zhaohui Hou
Affiliation:
School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Hunan Institute of Science and Technology, Yueyang 414006, People’s Republic of China
Minjie Zhou*
Affiliation:
School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Hunan Institute of Science and Technology, Yueyang 414006, People’s Republic of China
Xiaobo Chen*
Affiliation:
Department of Chemistry, University of Missouri—Kansas City, Kansas City, Missouri 64110, USA
*
a)Address all correspondence to these authors. e-mail: [email protected]
b)e-mail: [email protected]
c)e-mail: [email protected]
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Abstract

Designing advanced nonprecious metal electrocatalysts to reduce overpotential and accelerate hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) has attracted considerable attention. However, improving the sluggish kinetics for electrocatalytic HER in alkaline media is still a great challenge. Herein, we found that amorphous NiO nanoclusters directly grown on nickel foam (NiO/NF) as a bifunctional HER catalyst demonstrated an ultrahigh electrocatalytic activity in alkaline environment. Such excellent HER performance of NiO/NF might mainly originate from the exposed interfaces of metallic Ni and amorphous NiO. The coordinatively unsaturated amorphous NiO domain is propitious to the adsorption of water molecule and the successive cleavage of HO–H bond, while the neighboring metallic Ni domain is beneficial to the adsorption of resulting Hads intermediate and recombination into hydrogen molecules, thus expediting the HER toward lower overpotential. These findings may open a window to the design and preparation of earth-abundant, low-cost metal oxide/metal electrocatalysts with desirable HER activities.

Keywords

amorphousNicatalytic
Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Materials Research , Volume 33 , Issue 2 , 29 January 2018 , pp. 213 - 224
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Copyright
Copyright © Materials Research Society 2017 

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Footnotes

d)

This author was an editor of this journal during the review and decision stage. For the JMR policy on review and publication of manuscripts authored by editors, please refer to http://www.mrs.org/editor-manuscripts/.

Contributing Editor: Edward M. Sabolsky

References

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