Heterostructure engineering and ultralow Pt-loaded multicomponent nanocage for efficient electrocatalytic oxygen evolution.

ABSTRACT

Developing highly efficient electrocatalysts based on appropriate heterojunction engineering and electronic structure modification for the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) has been extensively recognized as an effective approach to increase the efficiency of water splitting. Herein, ultralow Pt-loaded (1 %) NiCoFeP@NiCoFe-PBA hollow nanocages with well-defined heterointerfaces and modified electronic environment are successfully fabricated. As expected, the obtained Pt-NiCoFeP@NiCoFe-PBA exhibits outstanding performance with a low overpotential of 255 mV at 10 mA cm-2 and a small Tafel slope of 57.2 mV dec-1. More specifically, the highly open three-dimensional structure, exquisite interior voids and abundant surface defects endow Pt-NiCoFeP@NiCoFe-PBA nanocages with more electrochemical active sites. Meanwhile, experimental results and mechanism studies also reveal that the construction of heterogeneous interfaces as well as incorporation of noble metals could readily induce strong synergistic effects and significantly tailor electronic configurations to optimize the binding energy of the intermediates, thereby achieving prominent OER performance.