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Enabling Iron‐Based Highly Effective Electrochemical Water‐Splitting and Selective Oxygenation of Organic Substrates through In Situ Surface Modification of Intermetallic Iron Stannide Precatalyst
Author(s) -
Chakraborty Biswarup,
BeltránSuito Rodrigo,
Hausmann J. Niklas,
Garai Somenath,
Driess Matthias,
Menezes Prashanth W.
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
advanced energy materials
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 10.08
H-Index - 220
eISSN - 1614-6840
pISSN - 1614-6832
DOI - 10.1002/aenm.202001377
Subject(s) - materials science , intermetallic , catalysis , anode , electrochemistry , oxygen evolution , water splitting , chemical engineering , oxide , nanosheet , noble metal , inorganic chemistry , metal , electrode , nanotechnology , metallurgy , chemistry , alloy , organic chemistry , engineering , photocatalysis
A strategy to overcome the unsatisfying catalytic performance and the durability of monometallic iron‐based materials for the electrochemical oxygen evolution reaction (OER) is provided by heterobimetallic iron–metal systems. Monometallic Fe catalysts show limited performance mostly due to poor conductivity and stability. Here, by taking advantage of the structurally ordered and highly conducting FeSn 2 nanostructure, for the first time, an intermetallic iron material is employed as an efficient anode for the alkaline OER, overall water‐splitting, and also for selective oxygenation of organic substrates. The electrophoretically deposited FeSn 2 on nickel foam (NF) and fluorine‐doped tin oxide (FTO) electrodes displays remarkable OER activity and durability with substantially low overpotentials of 197 and 273 mV at 10 mA cm −2 , respectively, which outperform most of the benchmarking NiFe‐based catalysts. The resulting superior activity is attributed to the in situ generation of α‐FeO(OH)@FeSn 2 where α‐FeO(OH) acts as the active site while FeSn 2 remains the conductive core. When the FeSn 2 anode is coupled with a Pt cathode for overall alkaline water‐splitting, a reduced cell potential (1.53 V) is attained outperforming that of noble metal‐based catalysts. FeSn 2 is further applied as an anode to produce value‐added products through selective oxygenation reactions of organic substrates.