Unraveling the role of nanocrystalline in amorphous nanoporous FeCoB catalysts for turning oxygen evolution activity and stability

The sluggish kinetics and high-power consumption of the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) are recognized as major barriers in electrocatalysis. Therefore, exploring cheap and highly-efficient OER electrocatalysts is highly desired for improving energy storage and conversion. Related Fe-based materials have been widely applied in OER electrocatalyst field due to their excellent OER activity. Herein, we adopt the vacuum annealing and electrochemical dealloying methods to produce a self-supporting np-Fe40Co40B20-800-5min catalyst enriched with nanocrystalline. The self-supporting np-Fe40Co40B20-800-5min catalyst exhibits superior OER performance with an overpotential of 315 mV at a current density of 10 mA cm-2 and a small Tafel slope of 26 mV dec-1. The overpotential of the np-Fe40Co40B20-800-5min catalyst is boosted by more than 20 percent over that obtained npFe40Co40B20 catalyst. The active intermediates were explored by in situ Raman under catalytic conditions. The indepth mechanism research suggests that the nanocrystalline may serve as an advantageous electrocatalytic species in amorphous np-Fe40Co40B20-x-ymin catalyst. This study offers a novel approach to promoting catalytic properties in an amorphous np-Fe40Co40B20-800-5min catalyst based on enriched nanocrystalline.

Automated summary

This study successfully prepared an OER catalyst (np-Fe40Co40B20-800-5min) enriched with nanocrystalline using vacuum annealing and electrochemical dealloying methods. The catalyst exhibited excellent OER performance.