Atomic-level insight into super-efficient electrocatalytic oxygen evolution on iron and vanadium co-doped nickel (oxy)hydroxide

• DOI: 10.1038/s41467-018-05341-y
• Publication Date: 2018-07-17T14:04:00Z
• Authors: Jian Jiang; Fanfei Sun; Si Zhou; Wei Hu; Hao Zhang; Jinchao Dong; Zheng Jiang; Jijun Zhao; Jianfeng Li; Wensheng Yan; Mei Wang
• Keywords: Overpotential; Oxidation state; Oxygen evolution

It is of great importance to understand the origin high oxygen-evolving activity state-of-the-art multimetal oxides/(oxy)hydroxides at atomic level. Herein we report an evident improvement oxygen evolution reaction via incorporating iron and vanadium into nickel hydroxide lattices. X-ray photoelectron/absorption spectroscopies reveal synergistic interaction between iron/vanadium dopants in host matrix, which subtly modulates local coordination environments electronic structures iron/vanadium/nickel cations. Further, in-situ absorption spectroscopic analyses manifest contraction metal-oxygen bond lengths activated catalyst, with a short vanadium-oxygen distance. Density functional theory calculations indicate that site co-doped (oxy)hydroxide gives near-optimal binding energies intermediates has lower overpotential compared sites. These findings suggest doped distorted geometric disturbed makes crucial contribution trimetallic catalyst.