NiCoFeP Nanofibers as an Efficient Electrocatalyst for Oxygen Evolution Reaction and Zinc–Air Batteries

Abstract

The development of high-performance and low-cost bifunctional electrocatalysts is still challenging for solving current energy and environmental problems. However, most electrocatalysts require complex synthesis processes, which prohibit mass production. Herein, NiCoFeP nanofibers are synthesized by phosphating the electrospun Ni,Co precursor nanofibers and subsequent displacement reaction of Ni and Fe3+ via impregnation of Fe(NO3)3 solution. The obtained NiCoFeP nanofibers catalyst possesses high intrinsic activity, abundant active sites, and superior kinetics, which shows excellent oxygen evolution reaction (OER) performance with low overpotential of 0.309 V at 50 mA cm−2 in 1 m KOH solution. It also exhibits a long-term cycling performance for 200 h at 10 mA cm−2 as the cathode for zinc–air battery. Furthermore, it is demonstrated that this displacement reaction method is also suitable for preparing other catalysts NiMnP and NiCuP to enhance their OER performance. This work presents a novel approach for the fabrication of multimetallic catalysts for electrocatalysis.