Phase engineering and surface reconstruction of FeNiMo alloys as high efficient electrode for oxygen evolution reaction

Abstract

In the field of electrocatalysis, most of the electrodes have the problem of poor mechanical properties, which leads to the electrode can not be used on a large scale. At present, most bulk electrodes are used to study their mechanical properties due to their unique phase composition distribution and facile fabricate methods. But their novel properties in the field of electrocatalysts have not been fully developed. Multi-element bulk electrodes not only diversified the electronic states, but also build complex surface morphology by different dissolution rate between multi-phase distribution. In this paper, we synthesized the FeNiMo bulk electrode for oxygen evolution reaction (OER) with two-phase coexistence of Mo-doped face center cubic phase (FCC) and Mo-rich intermetallic compound (IMC) phase. During cyclic voltammetry activation, the surface reconstruction of Mo-rich IMC phases generated by ion leaching leaves Fe–Ni pore structures with more active area, which enhances OER performance. Meanwhile, the electron states get more diverse on the surface of remaining FCC phases due to Mo doping, which provides more suitable sites for four-step OER process. The FeNiMo electrode shows an ultra-low overpotential of 212 mV and 293.4 mV at a current density of 10 mA cm−2 and 100 mA cm−2, respectively. Moreover, it can maintain stability at 100 mA cm−2 for up to 72 h. This work provides a strategy for studying the relationship between phase composition and electrochemical performance of alloy bulk electrodes.

Keywords

• Oxygen evolution reaction
• Bulk electrode
• Surface reconstruction
• Ion leaching
• Non-noble metal alloy