NiO as a Bifunctional Promoter for RuO2 toward Superior Overall Water Splitting

Jinlong Liu; Yao Zheng; Yan Jiao; Zhenyu Wang; Zhouguang Lu; Anthony Vasileff; Shi-Zhang Qiao

doi:10.1002/smll.201704073

NiO as a Bifunctional Promoter for RuO₂ toward Superior Overall Water Splitting

Small. 2018 Apr;14(16):e1704073. doi: 10.1002/smll.201704073. Epub 2018 Mar 15.

Authors

Jinlong Liu¹, Yao Zheng¹, Yan Jiao¹, Zhenyu Wang², Zhouguang Lu², Anthony Vasileff¹, Shi-Zhang Qiao^{1

3}

Affiliations

¹ School of Chemical Engineering, The University of Adelaide, Adelaide, SA, 5005, Australia.
² Department of Materials Science and Engineering, South University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen, 518005, P. R. China.
³ School of Materials Science and Engineering, Tianjin University, Tianjin, 300072, P. R. China.

PMID: 29542284
DOI: 10.1002/smll.201704073

Abstract

Conventional development of nanomaterials for efficient electrocatalysis is largely based on performance-oriented trial-and-error/iterative approaches, while a rational design approach at the atomic/molecular level is yet to be found. Here, inspired by a fundamental understanding of the mechanism for both oxygen and hydrogen evolution half reactions (OER/HER), a unique strategy is presented to engineer RuO₂ for superior alkaline water electrolysis through coupling with NiO as an efficient bifunctional promoter. Benefitting from desired potential-induced interfacial synergies, NiO-derived NiOOH improves the oxygen binding energy of RuO₂ for enhanced OER, and NiO also promotes water dissociation for enhanced HER on RuO₂ -derived Ru. The resulting hybrid material exhibits remarkable bifunctional activities, affording 2.6 times higher OER activity than that of RuO₂ and an HER activity comparable to Pt/C. As a result, the simple system requires only 1.5 V to deliver 10 mA cm^-2 for overall alkaline water splitting, outperforming the benchmark PtC/NF||IrO₂ /NF couple with high mass loading. Comprehensive electrochemical investigation reveals the unique and critical role of NiO on the optimized RuO₂ /NiO interface for synergistically enhanced activities, which may be extended to broader (electro)catalytic systems.

Keywords: bifunctional promoters; electrocatalysts; nickel oxide; ruthenium dioxide; water splitting.