Promoting Electrocatalytic Oxygen Evolution of Ultrasmall NiFe (Hydr)oxide Nanoparticles by Graphene-Support Effects

Although the activity of electrocatalysts towards oxygen evolution reaction (OER) has achieved considerable improvement by modulating the intrinsic electron structure, the role of supports to OER performance, often being reduced to enhancing the conductivity, is not fully explored. In this paper, a proof-of-concept study based on a series of hybrids of nickel iron (hydr)oxide nanoparticles (NiFeO NPs) and carbon supports with different oxidation level compared the motivation of supports for OER activity. The key to implementation lay in anchoring and growing of NiFeO NPs on the various carbon supports by electrostatic assembly and subsequent in-situ reduction. A series of experiments indicated that the strong coupling of metal ions and graphene oxide (GO) contributed to the formation of ultrasmall NiFeO NPs (≈2 nm) and the firm interaction between NiFeO NPs and GO, which in turn resulted in exposing more metal atoms, modulating local electron structure of active sites, and accelerating the charge-transfer ability. The OER activity of optimal NiFeO NPs anchored on rGO (NiFeO NPs/rGO) was significantly elevated, achieving an overpotential as small as 201 mV at 10 mA cm^-2 and a low Tafel slope of 68 mV dec^-1 , as well as remarkable stability. Such exciting capacity for catalyzing OER prevailed over the vast majority of previously reported transition-metal electrocatalysts, even superior to numerous noble metal-containing catalysts. The electrolyzer employing NiFeO NPs/rGO and commercial Pt/C for anode and cathode could be powered by a solar cell for efficient alkaline seawater splitting. This work opens up a universal and scalable way for further advancing the intrinsic activity of energy-related materials.