Morphology controlled synthesis of 2-D Ni–NiS and NiS nanostructures on Ni foam towards oxygen evolution reaction.
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ABSTRACT: Catalysts for oxygen evolution reactions (OER) are at the heart of key renewable energy technologies, and development of non-precious metal catalysts with high activity and stability remain a great challenge in this field. Among various material candidates, metal sulfides are receiving increasing attention. While morphology-dependent catalytic performances are well established in noble metal-based catalysts, relatively little is known for the morphology‒catalytic performance relationship in metal sulfide catalysts. In this study, uniform spider web-like Ni nanosheets–NiS and honeycomb-like NiS structures are deposited on nickel foam (NiS/NF) by a facile one-step hydrothermal synthetic route. When used as an oxygen evolution electrode, the spider web-like Ni–NiS/NF with the large exposed surface area shown excellent catalytic activity and stability with an overpotential of ~310 mV to achieve at 10 mA/cm and a Tafel slope of 63 mV/dec in alkaline media, which is superior to the honeycomb-like structure without Ni nanosheet. The low Tafel slope of the spider web-like Ni–NiS/NF represents one of the best OER kinetics among nickel sulfide-based OER catalysts. The results point to the fact that performance of the metal sulfide electrocatalysts might be fine-tuned and optimized with morphological controls.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s40580-017-0101-6) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
SUBMITTER: Chaudhari NK
PROVIDER: S-EPMC6141903 | biostudies-other | 2017
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-other
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