Ultrathin Ni(0)-Embedded Ni(OH)2 Heterostructured Nanosheets with Enhanced Electrochemical Overall Water Splitting |
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Authors: | Lei Dai Zhe-Ning Chen Liuxiao Li Peiqun Yin Zhengqing Liu Hua Zhang |
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Affiliation: | 1. Center for Programmable Materials, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, 50 Nanyang Avenue, Singapore, 639798 Singapore;2. State Key Laboratory of Structural Chemistry, Fujian Institute of Research on the Structure of Matter, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Fuzhou, 350002 P. R. China |
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Abstract: | The efficiency of splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen is highly dependent on the catalyst used. Herein, ultrathin Ni(0)-embedded Ni(OH)2 heterostructured nanosheets, referred to as Ni/Ni(OH)2 nanosheets, with superior water splitting activity are synthesized by a partial reduction strategy. This synthetic strategy confers the heterostructured Ni/Ni(OH)2 nanosheets with abundant Ni(0)-Ni(II) active interfaces for hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) and Ni(II) defects as transitional active sites for oxygen evolution reaction (OER). The obtained Ni/Ni(OH)2 nanosheets exhibit noble metal-like electrocatalytic activities toward overall water splitting in alkaline condition, to offer 10 mA cm−2 in HER and OER, the required overpotentials are only 77 and 270 mV, respectively. Based on such an outstanding activity, a water splitting electrolysis cell using the Ni/Ni(OH)2 nanosheets as the cathode and anode electrocatalysts has been successfully built. When the output voltage of the electrolytic cell is 1.59 V, a current density of 10 mA cm−2 can be obtained. Moreover, the durability of Ni/Ni(OH)2 nanosheets in the alkaline electrolyte is much better than that of noble metals. No obvious performance decay is observed after 20 h of catalysis. This facile strategy paves the way for designing highly active non-precious-metal catalyst to generate both hydrogen and oxygen by electrolyzing water at room temperature. |
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Keywords: | heterostructured Ni/Ni(OH)2 nanosheets hydrogen evolution reaction oxygen evolution reaction partial reduction strategy water splitting |
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