Unveiling the activity origin of electrocatalytic oxygen evolution over isolated Ni atoms supported on a N-doped carbon matrix

Exploring highly efficient electrocatalysts for the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) and unveiling their activity origin are pivotal for energy conversion technologies. Herein, atomically distributed Ni sites over a N-doped hollow carbon matrix are reported as a promising electrocatalyst for OER in a...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Zhang, Huabin, Liu, Yanyu, Chen, Tao, Zhang, Jintao, Zhang, Jing, Lou, David Xiong Wen
Other Authors: School of Chemical and Biomedical Engineering
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: 2020
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Online Access:https://hdl.handle.net/10356/138653
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Institution: Nanyang Technological University
Language: English
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Summary:Exploring highly efficient electrocatalysts for the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) and unveiling their activity origin are pivotal for energy conversion technologies. Herein, atomically distributed Ni sites over a N-doped hollow carbon matrix are reported as a promising electrocatalyst for OER in alkaline conditions. Significantly boosted activity is observed after the decoration of the active Ni sites with well-controlled coordination geometry. Results of X-ray absorption spectroscopy investigation and density functional theory (DFT) calculation reveal that the effective electronic coupling via the Ni-N coordination can move down the Fermi level and lower the adsorption energy of intermediates, thus resulting in the facilitated OER kinetics.