NiFe-based electrocatalyst anchored on nanocone with tip-field effect for improved oxygen evolution reaction

The development of high efficiency oxygen evolution electrocatalyst is of great significance for water splitting reaction. Herein, an efficient cone-structured NiFe-LDH/Nicone/Ti catalyst is fabricated by electrodeposition method towards enhanced oxygen evolution reaction (OER). The featured tip curvature of nanocone structure can accelerate the reaction kinetics of OER by offering a field-enhanced aggregation of local hydroxide ion reactant on the catalyst surface, and thus improves the performance of the NiFe catalyst. Accordingly, NiFe-LDH/Nicone/Ti requires only a low overpotential of 292 mV to achieve 50 mA cm−2, and with high stability under continuous high-current operations. In addition, the alkali-electrolyzer using NiFe-LDH/Nicone/Ti electrode exhibits good performance with a voltage of 1.73 V at 50 mA cm−2 and displays excellent stability in long-term stability test. This cone-structured catalyst design with field-enhanced local hydroxide ion aggregation effect provides a promising method for the development of highly active OER electrocatalysts.