Efficient oxygen evolution on spinel MFe2O4 (M = Zn and Ni) electrocatalysts

• Published in: Ionics Vol. 29; no. 8; pp. 3203 - 3211
• Main Authors: Liu, Yanying, Deng, Tianyin, He, Guangli, Han, Zhihua, Chen, Jingyun, Wei, Hui, Miao, Ping
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Berlin/Heidelberg Springer Berlin Heidelberg 01.08.2023; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Catalysts; Charge transfer; Chemistry; Chemistry and Materials Science; Condensed Matter Physics; Current density; Electrocatalysts; Electrochemistry; Energy Storage; Hydrogen production; Metal oxides; Optical and Electronic Materials; Oxygen evolution reactions; Renewable and Green Energy; Spinel; Water splitting; Zinc ferrites; Electrochemical water splitting; Oxygen evolution reaction; Anode catalyst; Oxygen vacancy; Spinel catalyst
• ISSN: 0947-7047; 1862-0760
• DOI: 10.1007/s11581-023-05022-x

Electrochemical water splitting for the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) requires highly active, long-durable, and cost-effective catalysts to meet the needs of large-scale hydrogen production in the future. Herein, we studied the OER performance of spinel MFe 2 O 4 (M = Zn and Ni) and NiO x . These metal oxides showed markedly different activities, which were closely related to their charge-transfer resistance and electrochemical surface area, attributing to the amount of oxygen vacancies. Particularly, ZnFe 2 O 4 exhibits superior OER activity with an overpotential of 318 mV at the current density of 10 mA cm −2 ( η 10 ) and a Tafel slope of 50 mV dec −1 . Furthermore, ZnFe 2 O 4 also presents outstanding long-term stability for 100 h with negligible decay even at a high current density of 800 mA cm −2 . This work provides a fundamental insight into the oxygen vacancy and spinel structure to help for the design of OER catalyst toward highly efficient water splitting.