Fabric-like rhodium-nickel-tungsten oxide nanosheets for highly-efficient electrocatalytic H2 generation in an alkaline electrolyte

Xin Liu; Guangliang Chen; Yingchun Guo; Tongtong Li; Jun Huang; Wei Chen; Kostya Ken Ostrikov

doi:10.1016/j.jcis.2024.01.060

Fabric-like rhodium-nickel-tungsten oxide nanosheets for highly-efficient electrocatalytic H₂ generation in an alkaline electrolyte

J Colloid Interface Sci. 2024 Apr:659:895-904. doi: 10.1016/j.jcis.2024.01.060. Epub 2024 Jan 11.

Authors

Xin Liu¹, Guangliang Chen², Yingchun Guo³, Tongtong Li⁴, Jun Huang⁵, Wei Chen⁵, Kostya Ken Ostrikov⁶

Affiliations

¹ Stoddart Institute of Molecular Science, Department of Chemistry, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027, PR China.
² Department of Materials Engineering, Huzhou University, Huzhou 313000, PR China. Electronic address: glchen@zjhu.edu.cn.
³ Department of Materials Engineering, Huzhou University, Huzhou 313000, PR China.
⁴ School of Materials Science and Engineering, Zhejiang Sci-Tech University, Hangzhou 310018, PR China. Electronic address: yitaji@zstu.edu.cn.
⁵ School of Physics and Electronic Information, Gannan Normal University, Ganzhou, Jiangxi 341000, PR China.
⁶ School of Chemistry and Physics, Centre for Materials Science, Centre for Clean Energy Technologies and Practices, Centre for Waste-free World, Queensland University of Technology (QUT), Brisbane, QLD 4000, Australia.

PMID: 38219308
DOI: 10.1016/j.jcis.2024.01.060

Abstract

Transition-metal based oxides with custom-designed phases are effective oxygen evolution reaction (OER) electrocatalysts. However, their applications in water splitting are limited because of insufficient catalytic performance in hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) in alkaline media. In this work, we engineer fabric-like rhodium-nickel-tungsten oxide nanosheets (Rh₂O₃-NiWO₄) on plasma-treated nickel foam (PNF) with a one-step hydrothermal approach for potential applications as industry-grade HER electrocatalysts. Benefiting from rich active sites exposed on the heterostructure, low hydrogen binding energy on Rh, and enhanced charge delivery rates, Rh₂O₃-NiWO₄/PNF catalyst exhibits superior HER activity than that achieved by a commercially available Pt/C catalyst. This is evidenced by the fact that the overpotentials of Rh₂O₃-NiWO₄/PNF for delivering current densities of 10 (j₁₀) and 1000 (j₁₀₀₀) mA cm^-2 in 1.0 M KOH are merely 19 and 293 mV, respectively. Meanwhile, the small Tafel slope (18 mV dec^-1) of the optimized catalyst manifests the fast HER kinetics. In addition, Rh₂O₃-NiWO₄/PNF exhibits ultra-stable HER performance, and the current density (j₁₀₀) only decrease 7.69 % after 100 h chronoamperometric curves (I-t) test. The present work provides a new approach for designing high-performance, low-cost 2D electrocatalysts for H₂ production and other clean energy-related applications.

Keywords: Electrocatalyst; Hydrogen evolution reaction; Interface synergism; Multiple metal oxides; Plasma nanotechnology.