Amorphous Ni-Fe-Si-B-O Nanosheets for Efficient Electrocatalytic Oxygen Evolution Reaction

Abstract

Transition metal silicate hydroxides (NFSO) have shown to be stable catalysts for electrocatalytic oxygen evolution reaction (OER) in alkaline environments. However, their catalytic activity is not satisfactory. In this work, we report the high OER performance of amorphous Ni-Fe-Si-B-O (NFSO-B_x) nanosheets catalyst synthesized by a simple coprecipitation method. Compared to traditional NFSO, the incorporation of B changes the electronic structure of NFSO and significantly enhances its activity. The optimum sample NFSO-B₁ exhibits an overpotential of 255 mV at 10 mA cm^− 2, which is 69 mV lower than that of undoped NFSO, and it is durable against 24 h of chronopotentiometry test and 1000 CV cycles. More importantly, the NFSO-B₁ catalyst outperforms NiFe-LDH and the benchmark commercial RuO₂ catalysts in OER activity, demonstrating great potential for commercial application.