Abstract
Exploring and identifying efficient materials with operative active sites for electrochemical oxygen evolution reaction (OER) is of paramount importance for the future of energy conversion technologies like electrolyzers and fuel cells. Herein, we develop an effective strategy to couple physically distinct metal-rich nickel phosphide (Ni12P5) with mildly oxidized multiwall carbon nanotubes (O-MWCNTs) to boost the efficiency of OER. Ni12P5-O-MWCNTs outperforms O2 evolution activity in contrast to the parental materials, Ni12P5 and O-MWCNTs. Intriguingly, Ni12P5-O-MWCNTs shows an overpotential of 280 mV achieved at a current density of 10 mAcm-2. The hybrid, Ni12P5-O-MWCNTs demonstrates remarkable OER activity by the virtue of development of heterointerfaces in which the effective interaction between Ni12P5 and O-MWCNTs plays a crucial role. Moreover, we have analyzed the XPS and HR-TEM of Ni12P5-O-MWCNTs after the chronoamperometry study of OER to examine the structural changes due to the prolonged oxidation reaction. This post OER study enabled us to identify the precatalyst and the active functional groups present in O-MWCNTs. Our approach opens a path for fabricating hybrid catalytic systems with synergetic activity to facilitate optimized electrocatalytic activity.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 10914-10921 |
Number of pages | 8 |
Journal | ACS Applied Nano Materials |
Volume | 3 |
Issue number | 11 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - 25 Nov 2020 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:Authors would like to thank the Israel Science Foundation and Israel Prime Ministry Office for funding of this study under the Israel Science Foundation and Israel Prime Minister’s Office fuel alternatives initiative under Israel National Research Center for Electrochemical Propulsion (Grant: ISF 2797/11)
Publisher Copyright:
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Keywords
- X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy
- chronoamperometry
- mildly oxidized multiwalled carbon nanotubes
- nickel phosphide
- oxygen evolution reaction