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

• 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
• Subjects: Engineering::Chemical engineering; Electronic Coupling; Hollow Carbon Matrices
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10356/138653
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

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.