Improvement of trisodium citrate-modified nife-layered double hydroxide nanosheets with carbon black for oxygen evolution reaction

Abstract

The pursuit of highly active and cost-effective catalysts toward oxygen evolution reaction (OER) is a crucial strategy to resolve the imminent energy crisis. NiFe layered double hydroxide (NiFe LDH) is acknowledged as one of the most promising OER electrocatalysts in alkaline electrolytes. Herein, we report a novel stepwise approach to synthesize NiFe LDHs materials merging with carbon black (CB) via trisodium citrate (TC), modifying toward OER. Benefiting from the inimitable wrapped structure, the decreased size of porous nanosheets and the superconductivity of CB substrate, NiFe LDHs/CB-TC presents excellent catalytic features with a comparative overpotential (236 mV at 10 mA cm−2) and an ultralow Tafel slope (31 mV dec−1), which are almost lower than those of advanced catalysts associated with expensive carbonaceous materials. Therefore, it is expected that such a high-activity and low-cost material can be a promising catalyst employed for the electrochemical energy storage and conversion systems.