Speaker
Description
Pursuing hydrogen fuel via water electrolysis has attracted much attention to overcome the diminishing reserves of fossil fuels and their environmental repercussions. The efficiency of water electrolysis largely hinges on overcoming the inherently sluggish kinetics of oxygen evolution reaction (OER). Innovating highly active, durable, cost-effective OER electrocatalysts is essential, especially in alkaline environments. NiFe-layered double hydroxides (LDH) hold promise as one of the most active electrocatalysts for the OER in alkaline environments. Nonetheless, its advancement demands improved activity and stability under harsh alkaline conditions. Unlike previous studies, we synthesized cerium-doped NiFe-LDH nanosheets through a single-step hydrothermal method. Introducing cerium in place of iron atoms boosts the catalytic efficiency and enriches the materials with more active sites. Our optimized Ce-doped NiFe-LDH/NF electrocatalyst demonstrated remarkable OER activity, requiring overpotentials of just 247 mV and 304 mV to achieve current densities of 100 and 1000 mA cm-2, respectively, with a low Tafel slope of 34.5 mV dec-1 in 1 M KOH. Notably, the electrocatalyst exhibited exceptional stability, maintaining robust performance in up to 6 M KOH solutions at room temperature and 65 oC, respectively, for about 300 h at elevated current densities of 500 mA cm-2, outperforming all the Ce-doped catalysts reported before in both performance and stability tested under identical conditions. These results underline the potential of Ce-doped NiFe-LDH as a cost-effective and highly efficient catalyst for sustainable hydrogen production, highlighting the importance of the one-step synthesis approach in advancing electrocatalytic materials.
| Academic year | 3rd year |
|---|---|
| Research Advisor | Shuo Chen |
