Nickel–vanadium monolayer double hydroxide for efficient electrochemical water oxidation

By Ke Fan, Hong Chen, Yongfei Ji, Hui Huang, P. Claesson, Quentin Daniel, Bertrand Philippe, H. Rensmo, Fusheng Li, Yi Luo and 1 more. Nature Communications, 2016

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Highly active and low-cost electrocatalysts for water oxidation are required due to the demands on sustainable solar fuels; however, developing highly efficient catalysts to meet industrial requirements remains a challenge. Herein, we report a monolayer of nickel–vanadium-layered double hydroxide that shows a current density of 27 mA cm−2 (57 mA cm−2 after ohmic-drop correction) at an overpotential of 350 mV for water oxidation. Such performance is comparable to those of the best-performing nickel–iron-layered double hydroxides for water oxidation in alkaline media. Mechanistic studies indicate that the nickel–vanadium-layered double hydroxides can provide high intrinsic catalytic activity, mainly due to enhanced conductivity, facile electron transfer and abundant active sites. This work may expand the scope of cost-effective electrocatalysts for water splitting. Water oxidation is a key component of water splitting, but more effective catalysts for the process are still required. Here the authors synthesize a monolayer nickel-vanadium layered double hydroxide material showing high activity for water oxidation owing to enhanced conductivity and abundant active sites.

Subfields: Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/81cc44f89b49406520a0eaa8986f642fc2639ed2