Ultrathin Spinel‐Structured Nanosheets Rich in Oxygen Deficiencies for Enhanced Electrocatalytic Water Oxidation

Jian Bao(University of Science and Technology of China), Xiaodong Zhang(University of Science and Technology of China), Bo Fan(University of Science and Technology of China), Jiajia Zhang(University of Science and Technology of China), Min Zhou(Technische Universität Ilmenau), Wenlong Yang(University of Science and Technology of China), Xin Hu(University of Science and Technology of China), Hui Wang(University of Science and Technology of China), Bicai Pan(University of Science and Technology of China), Yi Xie(University of Science and Technology of China)
Angewandte Chemie
May 7, 2015
10.1002/ange.201502226
Cited by 475

Abstract

Abstract Electrochemical water splitting is a clean technology for H 2 fuels, but greatly hindered by the slow kinetics of the oxygen evolution reaction (OER). Herein, a series of spinel‐structured nanosheets with oxygen deficiencies and ultrathin thicknesses were designed to increase the reactivity and the number of active sites of the catalysts, which were then taken as an excellent platform for promoting the water oxidation process. Theoretical investigations showed that the oxygen vacancies confined in the ultrathin nanosheet could lower the adsorption energy of H 2 O, leading to increased OER efficiency. As expected, the NiCo 2 O 4 ultrathin nanosheets rich in oxygen vacancies exhibited a large current density of 285 mA cm −2 at 0.8 V and a small overpotential of 0.32 V, both of which are superior to the corresponding values of bulk samples or samples with few oxygen deficiencies and even higher than those of most reported non‐precious‐metal catalysts. This work should provide a new pathway for the design of advanced OER catalysts.

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