Promoting Surface Reconstruction of Low‐Cost Stainless Steel Catalyst for Efficient Oxygen Evolution Reaction
Zhaoyang Cheng, Chao Qu, Chang Gao, Linghui Kong, Penggang Yin, Jianjian Lin
Abstract
Abstract The development of cost‐effective transition metal catalysts for oxygen evolution reaction (OER) is critical for the production of hydrogen fuel from water splitting. Low‐cost and efficient stainless steel‐based catalysts are expected to replace the scarce platinum group metals for large‐scale energy applications. Here in this work, we report the conversion of commonly available inexpensive and easily accessible 434‐L stainless steel (SS) into highly active and stable electrodes by corrosion and sulfuration strategies. The Ni x Fe 1−x S layer as a pre‐catalyst and S‐doped Ni x Fe oxyhydroxides in situ formed on the catalyst surface are the true active species for OER. The optimized 434‐L stainless steel‐based electrocatalyst exhibits a low overpotential of 298 mV at 10 mA cm −2 in 1.0 M KOH with a small OER kinetics (the Tafel slope of 54.8 mV dec −1 ) and good stability. This work reveals the 434‐L alloy stainless steel with Fe and Cr as the main elements can be used as qualified OER catalysts by surface modification, along with a new mentality to solve the energy and resource waste problems.