Angewandte Chemie - International Edition
Angewandte Chemie - International Edition
5 years ago

Crystallinity-Modulated Electrocatalytic Activity of a Nickel(II) Borate Thin Layer on Ni3B for Efficient Water Oxidation

Crystallinity-Modulated Electrocatalytic Activity of a Nickel(II) Borate Thin Layer on Ni3B for Efficient Water Oxidation
Shuai Niu, Ji-Hui Li, Jin-Song Hu, Xiao-Zhi Liu, Yun Zhang, Tang Tang, Qing-Hua Zhang, Wen-Jie Jiang, Lin Gu, Yu-Yun Chen, Li-Jun Wan
The exploration of new efficient OER electrocatalysts based on nonprecious metals and the understanding of the relationship between activity and structure of electrocatalysts are important to advance electrochemical water oxidation. Herein, we developed an efficient OER electrocatalyst with nickel boride (Ni3B) nanoparticles as cores and nickel(II) borate (Ni-Bi) as shells (Ni-Bi@NB) via a very simple and facile aqueous reaction. This electrocatalyst exhibited a small overpotential of 302 mV at 10 mA cm−2 and Tafel slope of 52 mV dec−1. More interestingly, it was found that the OER activity of Ni-Bi@NB was closely dependent on the crystallinity of the Ni-Bi shells. The partially crystalline Ni-Bi catalyst exhibited much higher activity than the amorphous or crystalline analogues; this higher activity originated from the enhanced intrinsic activity of the catalytic sites. These findings open up opportunities to explore nickel(II) borates as a new class of efficient nonprecious metal OER electrocatalysts, and to improve the electrocatalyst performance by modulating their crystallinity. A new winner! Crystallinity-dependent activity was demonstrated on a new efficient electrocatalyst for the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) which consists of a nickel(II) borate thin layer on nickel boride (NB) nanoparticles (Ni-Bi@NB) (see figure). The partially crystalline Ni-Bi catalyst exhibits excellent OER performance.

Publisher URL: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/resolve/doi

DOI: 10.1002/anie.201703183

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