A dealloyed bulk FeNi pattern with exposed highly active facets for cost-effective oxygen evolution

Porous materials are attractive substrates for oxygen evolution reaction (OER), however, suffer from sluggish kinetics because of weak catalyst-support interaction and low conductivity. Here, a porous FeNi alloy layer with exposed high active facets was developed on commercially-available bulk FeNi materials. The designed hier-archical structure can significantly promote the interaction between substrate and Ni-Fe layered double hy-droxide catalyst, and remain high conductivity of bulk metal substrate. The obtained OER electrode exhibits an ultra-small overpotential of 298 mV to deliver industrial required current density of 1000 mA cm-2, while retaining catalytic activity for 1350 h at room temperature and over 100 h even at 80 degrees C. Notably, the alkaline water electrolyzer using this OER electrode exhibits a super-low voltage of 1.46 V for a current density of 10 mA cm-2. Our novel strategy opens up an inexpensive solution for the design of OER electrodes with high catalytic activity and excellent stability.

Automated summary

By developing a porous FeNi alloy layer on commercially-available bulk FeNi materials, the interaction between catalyst and substrate can be enhanced, and the high conductivity of the substrate can be maintained, resulting in an OER electrode with high activity and excellent stability.