Facile Synthesis of FeCoNiCuIr High Entropy Alloy Nanoparticles for Efficient Oxygen Evolution Electrocatalysis

Abstract

The lack of an efficient and stable electrocatalyst for oxygen evolution reaction (OER) greatly hinders the development of various electrochemical energy conversion and storage techniques. In this study, we report a facile synthesis of FeCoNiCuIr high-entropy alloy nanoparticles (HEA NPs) by a one-step heat-up method. The involvement of glucose made the NPs grow uniformly and increased the valence of Ir. The resulting FeCoNiCuIr NPs exhibit excellent OER performance in alkaline solution, with a low overpotential of 360 mV to achieve a current density of 10 mA cm−2 at a Tafel slope of as low as 70.1 mV dec−1. In addition, high stability has also been observed, which remained at 94.2% of the current density after 10 h constant electrolysis, with a constant current of 10 mA cm−2. The high electrocatalytic activity and stability are ascribed to the cocktail effect and synergistic effect between the constituent elements. Our work holds the potential to be extended to the design and synthesis of high-performance electrocatalysts.