Effect of Iron Doping in Ordered Nickel Oxide Thin Film Catalyst for the Oxygen Evolution Reaction
Journal article, 2024
Water splitting has emerged as a promising route for generating hydrogen as an alternative to conventional production methods. Finding affordable and scalable catalysts for the anodic half-reaction, the oxygen evolution reaction (OER), could help with its industrial widespread implementation. Iron-containing Ni-based catalysts have a competitive performance for the use in commercial alkaline electrolyzers. Due to the complexity of studying the catalysts at working conditions, the active phase and the role that iron exerts in conjunction with Ni are still a matter of investigation. Here, we study this topic with NiO(001) and Ni0.75Fe0.25Ox(001) thin film model electrocatalysts employing surface-sensitive techniques. We show that iron constrains the growth of the oxyhydroxide phase formed on top of the Ni or NiFe oxide, which is considered the active phase for the OER. Besides, operando Raman and grazing incidence X-ray absorption spectroscopy experiments reveal that the presence of iron affects both, the disorder level of the active phase and the oxidative charge around Ni during OER. The observed compositional, structural, and electronic properties of each system have been correlated with their electrochemical performance.
Fe doping
alkaline OER
NiOthin films
model catalysts
operando spectroscopy
Author
Ane Etxebarria
Max Planck Society
University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU)
Mauricio Lopez Luna
Lawrence Berkeley Natl Lab, Adv Light Source ALS
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Max Planck Society
Andrea Martini
Max Planck Society
Uta Hejral
Chalmers, Physics, Chemical Physics
Martina Ruescher
Max Planck Society
Chao Zhan
Max Planck Society
Antonia Herzog
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
Max Planck Society
Afshan Jamshaid
Max Planck Society
David Kordus
Max Planck Society
Arno Bergmann
Max Planck Society
Helmut Kuhlenbeck
Max Planck Society
Beatriz Roldan Cuenya
Max Planck Society
ACS CATALYSIS
2155-5435 (ISSN)
Vol. 14 18 14219-14232Subject Categories
Materials Chemistry
Condensed Matter Physics
DOI
10.1021/acscatal.4c02572