Annealing and electrochemically activated amorphous ribbons: Surface nanocrystallization and oxidation effects enhanced for oxygen evolution performance

Annealing and cyclic voltammetry (CV) are essential for the activation of amorphous alloy ribbons. Various amorphous alloy ribbons have been activated in the fields of environmental catalysts using either annealing or CV. However, the combination of the two methods for improving the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) performance has rarely been reported. This combination is expected to significantly improve the OER performance of amorphous ribbons. Here, we developed an annealing +CV-activation integrated strategy to treat a free-standing NiFeBSiP ribbon, which as an efficient and stable oxygenevolving electrode. The annealing +CV-activation strategy induces the nanocrystallization and oxidation effects on the surface of the NiFeBSiP ribbon. The effects significantly increase the electron transfer ability, the Ni/Fe/P oxidation state and the surface area of the NiFeBSiP ribbon, which consequently leads to enhancing the OER performance. As a result, the treated ribbon exhibits a low overpotential of 269 mV at 10 mA cm(-2) and a small Tafel slope of 40.5 mV dec(-1), which are much better than the OER performance of the as-spun ribbon. The enhanced OER performance of the NiFeBSiP ribbon demonstrates the significant and promising effect of the annealing +CV-activation integrated strategy for designing high-efficiency amorphous alloy ribbons electrocatalysts. (C) 2022 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Automated summary

In this study, an annealing +CV-activation integrated strategy was developed to treat a free-standing NiFeBSiP ribbon as an efficient and stable oxygen-evolving electrode. The strategy induced nanocrystallization and oxidation effects on the surface of the ribbon, significantly improving electron transfer ability, oxidation state, and surface area, thereby enhancing the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) performance.