Boosting the OER Performance of Nitrogen-Doped Ni Nanoclusters Confined in an Amorphous Carbon Matrix

Nanoclusters are ideal electrocatalysts due to their high surface activity. However, their high activities also lead to serious agglomeration and performance attenuation during the catalytic process. Here, highly dispersed Ni nanoclusters (∼3 nm) confined in an amorphous carbon matrix are successfully fabricated by pulsed laser deposition, followed by rapid temperature annealing treatment. Then, the Ni nanoclusters are further doped with nitrogen element through a clean N₂ radio frequency plasma technology. It is found that the nitrogen-doped Ni nanoclusters obtained under optimized conditions showed superior OER performance with a very low overpotential of 240 mV at a current density of 10 mA/cm², together with good stability. The excellent OER performance of the nanoclusters can be attributed to the unique confined structure and nitrogen doping, which not only provide more active sites but also improve the conductivity. Our work provides a controllable method for the construction of a novel confined structure with controllable nitrogen doping, which can be used as a high-efficiency OER electrocatalyst.