Implanting Ni into N-doped puffed carbon: A new advanced electrocatalyst for oxygen evolution reaction

• Published in: Chinese chemical letters Vol. 31; no. 9; pp. 2230 - 2234
• Main Authors: Cao, Feng, Pan, Guoxiang, Zhang, Yujian, Xia, Xinhui
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier B.V 01-09-2020; Department of Materials Chemistry, Huzhou University, Huzhou 313000, China%State Key Laboratory of Silicon Materials, Key Laboratory of Advanced Materials and Applications for Batteries of Zhejiang Province, Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027, China; Key Laboratory of Advanced Energy Materials Chemistry (Ministry of Education), College of Chemistry, Nankai University, Tianjin 300071, China
• Subjects: Electrocatalysis; Metal-carbon composites; N doping; Oxygen evolution reaction; Porous carbon; Electrocatalysis; Porous carbon; Oxygen evolution reaction; Metal-carbon composites; N doping
• ISSN: 1001-8417; 1878-5964
• DOI: 10.1016/j.cclet.2020.01.037

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A powerful puffing method has been developed to fabricate highly porous nickel-embedded nitrogen-doped puffed carbon (N-PC/Ni) as an efficient and cost-effective OER electrocatalyst. Due to more exposed active sites and rich/short pathways for electron/ion transfer, the N-PC/Ni composites show boosted electrocatalytic performance.
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Tailored design and synthesis of high-quality electrocatalysts is vital for the advancement of oxygen evolution reaction (OER). Herein, we report a powerful puffing method to fabricate hierarchical porous N-doped carbon with numerous embedded Ni nanoparticles. Interestingly, during the puffing and annealing process, rice precursor with N and Ni sources can be in-situ converted into Ni-embedded N-doped porous carbon (N-PC/Ni) composite. The obtained N-PC/Ni composite possesses a cross-linked porous architecture containing conductive carbon backbone and active Ni nanoparticles electrocatalysts for OER. The pore formation in N-PC/Ni composite is also proposed because of carbothermic reduction. The N-PC/Ni composite is fully studied as electrocatalysts for OER. Due to increased active surface area, enhanced electronic conductivity and reactivity, the designed N-PC/Ni composite exhibits superior OER performance with a low Tafel slope (∼88mV/dec) and a low overpotential as well as excellent long-term stability in alkaline solution. Our proposed rational design strategy may provide a new way to construct other advanced metal/heteroatom-doped composites for widespread application in electrocatalysis.