A Glass-Ceramic with Accelerated Surface Reconstruction toward the Efficient Oxygen Evolution Reaction

The effective non-precious metal catalysts toward the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) are highly desirable for electrochemical water splitting. Herein, we prepare a novel glass-ceramic (Ni_1.5 Sn@triMPO₄ ) by embedding crystalline Ni_1.5 Sn nanoparticles into amorphous trimetallic phosphate (triMPO₄ ) matrix. This unique crystalline-amorphous nanostructure synergistically accelerates the surface reconstruction to active Ni(Fe)OOH, due to the low vacancy formation energy of Sn in glass-ceramic and high adsorption energy of PO₄ ^3- at the V_O sites. Compared to the control samples, this dual-phase glass-ceramic exhibits a remarkably lowered overpotential and boosted OER kinetics after surface reconstruction, rivaling most of state-of-the-art electrocatalysts. The residual PO₄ ^3- and intrinsic V_O sites induce redistribution of electron states, thus optimizing the adsorption of OH* and OOH* intermediates on metal oxyhydroxides and promoting the OER activity.