Synergistic Effects in LaNiO₃ Perovskites between Nickel and Iron Heterostructures for Improving Durability in Oxygen...

Perovskite materials that aren't stable during the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) are unsuitable for anion-exchange membrane water electrolyzers (AEMWE). But through manipulating their electronic structures, their performance can further increase. Among the first-row transition metals, nickel and iron are widely recognized as prominent electrocatalysts; thus, the researchers are looking into how combining them can improve the OER. Recent research has actively explored the design and study of heterostructures in this field, showcasing the dynamic exploration of innovative catalyst configurations. In this study, a heterostructure is used to manipulate the electronic structure of LaNiO₃ (LNO) to improve both OER properties and durability. Through adsorbing iron onto the LNO (LNO@Fe) as γ iron oxyhydroxide (γ-FeOOH), the binding energy of nickel in the LNO exhibited negative shifts, inferring nickel movement toward the metallic state. Consequently, the electrochemical properties of LNO@Fe are further improved. LNO@Fe showed excellent performance (1.98 A cm^-2, 1 m KOH, 50 °C at 1.85 V) with 84.1% cell efficiency in AEMWE single cells, demonstrating great improvement relative to LNO. The degradation for the 850 h durability analysis of LNO@Fe is ≈68 mV kh^-1, which is ≈58 times less than that of LNO.