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Efficient Oxygen Evolution Electrocatalyst by Incorporation of Nickel into Nanoscale Dicobalt Boride
Author(s) -
Schuch Jona,
Klemenz Sebastian,
Schuldt Patrick,
Zieschang AnneMarie,
Dolique Stephanie,
Connor Paula,
Kaiser Bernhard,
Kramm Ulrike I.,
Albert Barbara,
Jaegermann Wolfram
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
chemcatchem
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.497
H-Index - 106
eISSN - 1867-3899
pISSN - 1867-3880
DOI - 10.1002/cctc.202002030
Subject(s) - overpotential , electrocatalyst , nickel , x ray photoelectron spectroscopy , catalysis , oxygen evolution , calcination , materials science , cobalt , electrochemistry , boride , inorganic chemistry , transition metal , chemical engineering , chemistry , metallurgy , electrode , organic chemistry , engineering
Recently, transition metal borides attracted increased attention as electrocatalysts for the oxygen evolution reaction. Here, we show how the incorporation of nickel into nanoscale dicobalt boride results in an improvement of the activity and stability of the catalyst in alkaline electrolytes. The borides are obtained by a one‐step solution synthesis, calcined, and characterized by X‐ray diffraction and scanning electron microscopy. For (Co 1‐x Ni x ) 2 B (x=0, 0.1, 0.2, 0.3, 0.4, and 0.5), (Co 0.9 Ni 0.1 ) 2 B shows the best performance with an overpotential of η=371 mV at 10 mA cm −2 in 1 M KOH. Normalization to the electrochemical surface area shows a clear dependence on the activity with rising nickel content. X‐ray photoelectron spectroscopy reveals that the catalyst is modified under reaction conditions and indicates that CoOOH and Ni(OH) 2 are formed as active surface species. Flame atomic absorption spectroscopy (F‐AAS) measurements show that no cobalt is dissolved during the electrochemical investigations, but the nickel concentration is increased on the surface of the catalyst as follows from XPS measurements after the electrochemical investigation.