Pre-doping Carbonate Ions into Nickel Hydroxide Interlayers Enables Long-Term Alkaline Seawater Oxidation

Jiayi Liu; Qianfeng Liu; Qiang Zhang; Min Li; Hui Wu; Yang Yang; Hongtao Wang; Erdong Wang

doi:10.1021/acsami.5c06607

Pre-doping Carbonate Ions into Nickel Hydroxide Interlayers Enables Long-Term Alkaline Seawater Oxidation

ACS Appl Mater Interfaces. 2025 Jun 11;17(23):34063-34072. doi: 10.1021/acsami.5c06607. Epub 2025 May 29.

Authors

Jiayi Liu^{1

2}, Qianfeng Liu¹, Qiang Zhang¹, Min Li^{1

2}, Hui Wu^{1

3}, Yang Yang⁴, Hongtao Wang⁴, Erdong Wang^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ State Key Laboratory of Catalysis, Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Dalian, Liaoning 116023, China.
² University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, PR China.
³ School of Materials Science and Engineering, Dalian Jiaotong University, Dalian 116028, China.
⁴ Dalian Petrochemical Research Institute, China Petrolum Chemical Corporation, Dalian 116045, China.

PMID: 40442040
DOI: 10.1021/acsami.5c06607

Abstract

Chlorine corrosion for the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) electrode remains a major challenge for seawater electrolysis. Here, we propose a simple strategy to obtain the long-lifespan and high active OER electrode via pre-doping carbonate ions only into the nickel hydroxide interlayers as the anticorrosive and catalyst layer grown on nickel foam (NF) (Ni(OH)₂-CO₃^2-/NF). The experimental test and theory calculation reveal that the pre-doped CO₃^2- in the Ni(OH)₂ interlayers suppresses the Cl^- transport via enhancing its migration energy to inhibit chlorine corrosion. Consequently, the Ni(OH)₂-CO₃^2-/NF electrode lifespan reaches 900 h in alkaline-simulated seawater at 400 mA cm^-2, which is more than 300 times longer than that of the Ni(OH)₂/NF electrode without CO₃^2-. Meanwhile, CO₃^2- only in the Ni(OH)₂ interlayers let the electrode display higher activity than that of adding CO₃^2- in the electrolyte, which only needs 360 mV overpotential at a current density of 100 mA·cm^-2 in alkaline-simulated seawater.

Keywords: carbonate; chlorine corrosion; oxygen evolution reaction; predoping; seawater electrolysis.