Simple preparation of Ni2P/Ni(PO3)2 inlayed in nitrogen-sulfur self-doped ultrathin holey carbon nanosheets with excellent electrocatalytic activities for water splitting

Interface engineering on super-hydrophilic amorphous/crystalline NiFe-based hydroxide/selenide heterostructure nanoflowers for accelerated industrial overall water splitting at high current density

Designing heterojunction catalysts with energy effects at the interface, particularly combining the surface structure advantages of super-hydrophilic interfaces with the high activity advantages of bimetal synergistic optimisation, is the key to developing economical and efficient industrial electrocatalytic water-splitting catalysts. In this study, a coupled nanoflower-like NiFe(OH)x/(Ni, Fe)Se heterostructure catalyst supported on Ni foam (NF) (NFSe@NFOH/NF) was designed and successfully prepared using hydrothermal and electrodeposition strategies. Owing to the electron interaction at the heterogeneous amorphous (NFOH)/crystalline (NFSe) interface and the bimetallic synergistic effect of Ni and Fe, the prepared NFSe@NFOH/NF exhibited excellent and stable oxygen evolution reaction (OER) and hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) catalytic properties, with low overpotentials of 214/276 mV at 100 mA⋅cm-2 and 262/340 mV at 500 mA⋅cm-2. The assembled water electrolyser comprising NFSe@NFOH/NF || NFSe@NFOH/NF needed only small voltages of 1.73 and 1.85 V to yield current densities of 100 and 500 mA⋅cm-2, respectively. This study offers an innovative design idea for the rational adoption of interface engineering and amorphous-crystalline engineering techniques to construct catalysts with excellent catalytic activity and stability for electrocatalytic overall water splitting (EOWS) at a high current density, which further facilitates the advancement of sustainable energy technology in the future.

Fabricating Ru Atom-Doped Novel FeP4/Fe2PO5 Heterogeneous Interface for Overall Water Splitting in Alkaline Environment

Developing bifunctional electrocatalysts with low-content noble metals and high activity and stability is crucial for water splitting. Herein, we reported a novel Ru doped FeP4/Fe2PO5 heterogeneous interface catalyst (Ru@FeP4/Fe2PO5) for oxygen evolution reaction (OER) and hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) by heat treatment coupling electrodeposition strategy. Experiments disclosed that Ru@FeP4/Fe2PO5 proclaimed excellent catalytic activity for the OER (249 mV@100 mA cm-2) and HER (49 mV@10 mA cm-2) in a 1 M KOH environment. More importantly, the mass activity and turnover frequency of Ru@FeP4/Fe2PO5 were 117 and 108 times higher than that of commercial RuO2 at an overpotential of 300 mV during the OER, respectively. In addition, the assembled Ru@FeP4/Fe2PO5 || Ru@FeP4/Fe2PO5 system could retain superior durability in a two-electrode system for 134 h at 300 mA cm-2. Further mechanism studies revealed that Ru atoms in Ru@FeP4/Fe2PO5 act in a key role for the excellent activity during water splitting because the electronic structure of Ru sites could be optimized by the interaction between Ru and Fe atoms at the interface to strengthen the adsorption of reaction intermediates. Besides, the introduction of Ru atoms could also enhance the charge transfer, which effectually accelerates the reaction kinetics. The strategy of anchoring Ru atom on novel heterostructure provides a promising path to boost the overall activity of electrocatalysts for water splitting.

Mushroom-like cobalt nickle metaphosphate@nickel diselenide core-shell nanorods for asymmetric supercapacitors

Although transition metal metaphosphates (TMPOs) display special physical/chemical features and high theoretical capacities, their applications for supercapacitors (SCs) are still restricted by their low energy densities and inferior cycling stability. Herein, a novel strategy has been proposed to address these issues through in situ construction of cobalt nickle metaphosphate (Co_0.2Ni_0.8(PO₃)₂)@nickel diselenide (NiSe₂) core-shell heterostructure on carbon paper (CP) as a self-supporting flexible electrode for SCs. Particularly, this unique mushroom-like porous nanoarchitecture assembled by one-dimensional (1D) Co_0.2Ni_0.8(PO₃)₂ nanorods and zero-dimensional (0D) NiSe₂ nanospheres can expose abundant active sites and afford multi-dimensional channels, which favors rapid electron ions/electron transfer, accelerates the reaction kinetics, and alleviates volume changes during charging/discharging processes. Profiting from its well-aligned 1D/0D nanostructure and strong synergistic effect between Co_0.2Ni_0.8(PO₃)₂ and NiSe₂, the Co_0.2Ni_0.8(PO₃)₂@NiSe₂/CP electrode delivers a specific capacity of 219.4 mAh/g/0.414 mAh cm^-2 at 1 A/g and good cycling stability with capacity retention of 90.7% after 5000 cycles, outperforming many previously reported TMPO-based electrodes in literature. Impressively, an asymmetric supercapacitor (ASC) device assembled with Co_0.2Ni_0.8(PO₃)₂@NiSe₂ as cathode and porous carbon as anode achieves an energy density of 69.2 Wh kg^-1 at 736.0 W kg^-1 and maintains a capacity retention of 97.6% after 20,000 charge-discharge cycles. This work provides an efficient approach to design multi-dimensional hybrid nanomaterials for high-performance SCs.

Ce-Substituted Spinel CuCo2O4 Quantum Dots with High Oxygen Vacancies and Greatly Improved Electrocatalytic Activity for Oxygen Evolution Reaction

Exploring effective electrocatalysts for oxygen evolution reaction (OER) is a crucial requirement of many energy storage and transformation systems, involving fuel cells, water electrolysis, and metal-air batteries. Transition-metal oxides (TMOs) have attracted much attention to OER catalysts because of their earth abundance, tunable electronic properties, and so forth. Defect engineering is a general and the most important strategy to tune the electronic structure and control size, and thus improve their intrinsic activities. Herein, OER performance on spinel CuCo₂O₄ was greatly enhanced through cation substitution and size reduction. Ce-substituted spinel CuCe_δCo_2-δO_x (δ = 0.45, 0.5 and 0.55) nanoparticles in the quantum dot scale (2-8 nm) were synthesized using a simple and facile phase-transfer coprecipitation strategy. The as-prepared samples were highly dispersed and have displayed a low overpotential of 294 mV at 10 mA·cm^-2 and a Tafel slope of 57.5 mV·dec^-1, which outperform commercial RuO₂ and the most high-performance analogous catalysts reported. The experimental and calculated results all confirm that Ce substitution with an appropriate content can produce rich oxygen vacancies, tune intermediate absorption, consequently lower the energy barrier of the determining step, and greatly enhance the OER activity of the catalysts. This work not only provides advanced OER catalysts but also opens a general avenue to understand the structure-activity relationship of pristine TMO catalysts deeply in the quantum dot scale and the rational design of more efficient OER catalysts.

yMoO42- modified amorphous Co(PO3)2 cubes as an efficient bifunctional electrocatalyst for alkaline overall water splitting

The exploration of efficient bifunctional electrocatalysts for oxygen evolution reaction (OER) and hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) under alkaline conditions is an importantway to promote the development of electrolytic water technology. Herein, the reduced graphene oxide-supported MoO₄^2- modified amorphous cobalt metaphosphate cubes (a-Co(PO₃)₂/MoO₄/rGO) as bifunctional OER/HER catalyst is prepared by anion exchange and phosphating, using the Prussian blue analogue (PBA) as a precursor. The resulting composite exhibits the low overpotentials (η) that of 290 and 50 mV for OER and HER in 1.0 M KOH solution at 10 mA cm^-2, respectively. The electrochemical test and density functional theory (DFT) results reveal that the MoO₄^2--modified optimizes the adsorption/desorption energy of H* of Co(PO₃)₂, thus enhance the HER activity. Benefiting from efficient HER and OER performances, an efficient and stable alkaline water electrolysis operation using a-Co(PO₃)₂/MoO₄/rGO used as bifunctional catalyst can be carried out, which can deliver a current density (j) of 20 mA cm^-2 at 1.65 V cell voltage and work continuously for 24 h.

Facile fabrication of core-shell structured Ni(OH)2/Ni(PO3)2 composite via one-step electrodeposition for high performance asymmetric supercapacitor

Metal metaphosphates, particularly those with core-shell structure, have showed extraordinary potential in energy storage field due to their superior chemical and physical properties. However, the core-shell metal metaphosphates with high energy density in supercapacitor application is rarely reported. Here, the core-shell structured Ni(OH)₂/Ni(PO₃)₂ (NNP) hybrid electrode were prepared by one-step electrodeposition, which exhibits a superior specific capacitance of 1477 F g^-1 at a current density of 1 A g^-1. Furthermore, an aqueous asymmetric supercapacitor (ASC) based on NNP hybrid composite as cathode and reduced graphene oxide (rGO) as anode is assembled successfully to deliver a prominent energy density of 67 Wh kg^-1 at 775 W kg^-1 and splendid stability with capacitance retention of 81% after 8000 cycles. The outstanding electrochemical capabilities are attributed to the porous nanoflake and hierarchical core-shell structure of NNP hybrid composite, which can accelerate ion diffusion and charge transfer in redox reaction. These results indicate that nanohybrid NNP material has promise to be an advanced energy storage material.