Photo-assisted synthesis of ternary metal (oxy)hydroxide electrode for enhanced seawater splitting and solar-to-hydrogen conversionShow others and affiliations
2025 (English)In: Journal of Colloid and Interface Science, ISSN 0021-9797, E-ISSN 1095-7103, Vol. 691, article id 137410Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]
Seawater electrolysis offers a sustainable route for large-scale hydrogen production, yet the development of nonnoble metal electrocatalysts with high activity and chloride resistance remains challenging. Here, we report a photo-assisted synthesis method to fabricate a ternary metal (oxy)hydroxide electrocatalyst (p-S-Ni(Fe,Co)OOH) from nickel foam, utilizing photogenerated holes to achieve atomic-level Fe/Co co-doping. The p-S-Ni(Fe,Co) OOH exhibits bifunctional activity in alkaline seawater, requiring overpotentials of 108 and 186 mV for hydrogen- and oxygen-evolution reactions (HER and OER) at 10 mA cm- 2 in 1.0 M KOH, respectively, outperforming its dark-synthesized counterpart (S-Ni(Fe,Co)OOH). When integrated into a photovoltaicelectrocatalytic (PV-EC) powered by commercial Si solar cells, p-S-Ni(Fe,Co)OOH achieves solar-to-hydrogen (STH) efficiencies of 13.2 % (simulated seawater) and 12.1 % (natural seawater), with stable operation over 30 h. Density functional theory (DFT) calculations identify Fe as the primary active site for OER, while Fe/Co codoping modulates the Fe d-band center toward the Fermi level, optimizing intermediate adsorption energetics and improving chloride resistance. This study proposes a synthesis strategy for seawater-compatible catalysts elucidates electronic structure modulation at colloidal interface.
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
ACADEMIC PRESS INC ELSEVIER SCIENCE , 2025. Vol. 691, article id 137410
Keywords [en]
Metal hydroxyl oxide; Seawater splitting; Solar-to-hydrogen; Photo-assisted; Photovoltaic-electrocatalytic
National Category
Inorganic Chemistry
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:liu:diva-212994DOI: 10.1016/j.jcis.2025.137410ISI: 001459970100001PubMedID: 40157075Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-105000889149OAI: oai:DiVA.org:liu-212994DiVA, id: diva2:1952235
Note
Funding Agencies|Guangdong Basic and Applied Basic Research Foundation [2022A1515110372, 2023A1515011306, 2023A1515240077]; National Natural Science Foundation of China [52273187]; Guangdong-Hong Kong Joint Laboratory for Preparation and Application of Ordered Structural Materials of Guangdong Province [2023B1212120011]; Swedish Research Council [VR 2019-05577]; The 2024 Guangdong Provincial Special Fund Project for Scientific and Technological Innovation Strategy [pdjh2024b169]
2025-04-152025-04-152025-04-15