Boron-Doped Graphene Oxide-Supported Nickel Nitride Nanoparticles for Electrocatalytic Oxygen Evolution in Alkaline Electrolytes
Bo Li, Fahui Song, Yuqin Qian, Jeremy Shaw, Yi Rao
Abstract
The development of efficient oxygen evolution reaction (OER) electrocatalysts is crucial for hydrogen energy economy. While noble-metal-based electrocatalysts show excellent performance in the OER, the scarcity and high cost of noble metals limit their widespread applications. Herein, we report an efficient and stable noble-metal-free catalyst for the OER. We synthesized a high-performance interface catalyst, boron-doped graphene (BGO) nanosheet-supported nickel nitride (Ni3N) nanoparticles BGO/Ni3N, for the OER in alkaline electrolytes. This metal-free catalyst BGO/Ni3N exhibits high electrocatalytic OER activity and kinetics with a low overpotential of 290 mV at a current density of 10 mA·cm–2 and a small Tafel slope of 77.9 mV·dec–1 in a 1 M KOH solution. Moreover, the catalysts show excellent OER stability and durability. The strong electronic coupling between p-type BGO and n-type Ni3N as well as increased electrical conductivity of BGO might be responsible for the good conductivity and fast charge transfer in the OER.