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Promote the electrocatalysis activity of amorphous FeOOH to oxygen evolution reaction by coupling with ZnO nanorod array

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Abstract

Developing highly efficient, low-cost, and stable electrocatalyst for the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) is essential for hydrogen production by electrolyzing water. In this paper, ZnO/amorphous-FeOOH core-shell nanorod array is fabricated on Ni foil via a simple two-step chemical bath method and used as OER catalyst. Amorphous FeOOH possesses more O defects than crystalline FeOOH. Besides, the X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) results reveal that the strong electron interactions on nano-interface between ZnO and FeOOH facilitate charge transfer from FeOOH to ZnO. Due to these advantages, the ZnO/amorphous-FeOOH hybrid nanorods exhibit excellent electrocatalytic performance for OER, with an overpotential of 301 mV at 10 mA cm−2, Tafel slope of 50 mV dec−1, and outstanding stability.

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Funding

This study was supported by the Science and Technology Department of Henan Province (no. 162300410028).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Materials Science and Engineering, Zhengzhou University, No. 100 Science Avenue, Zhengzhou, 450100, Henan, China

    Liying Zhang, Hao Li, Bingwang Yang, Ning Han, Yu Wang, Zongtao Zhang, Ying Zhou & Deliang Chen

  2. School of Materials Science and Engineering, Shanghai University, No. 333 Nanchen Road, Shanghai, 200444, China

    Yanfeng Gao

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  1. Liying Zhang
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  2. Hao Li
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Correspondence to Liying Zhang.

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Zhang, L., Li, H., Yang, B. et al. Promote the electrocatalysis activity of amorphous FeOOH to oxygen evolution reaction by coupling with ZnO nanorod array. J Solid State Electrochem 24, 905–914 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10008-020-04540-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10008-020-04540-2

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