title: Ultrathin Spinel-Structured Nanosheets Rich in Oxygen Deficiencies for Enhanced Electrocatalytic Water Oxidation.
abstract: Electrochemical water splitting is a clean technology for H2 fuels, but greatly hindered by the slow kinetics of the oxygen evolution reaction (OER). Herein, a series of spinel-structured nanosheets with oxygen deficiencies and ultrathin thicknesses were designed to increase the reactivity and the number of active sites of the catalysts, which were then taken as an excellent platform for promoting the water oxidation process. Theoretical investigations showed that the oxygen vacancies confined in the ultrathin nanosheet could lower the adsorption energy of H2O, leading to increased OER efficiency. As expected, the NiCo2O4 ultrathin nanosheets rich in oxygen vacancies exhibited a large current density of 285 mA cm(-2) at 0.8 V and a small overpotential of 0.32 V, both of which are superior to the corresponding values of bulk samples or samples with few oxygen deficiencies and even higher than those of most reported non-precious-metal catalysts. This work should provide a new pathway for the design of advanced OER catalysts.
authors.affiliation: Hefei National Laboratory for Physical Science at the Microscale, Collaborative Innovation Center of Chemistry for Energy Materials, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui, 230026 (P. R. China).
authors.forename: Jian
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Bao
authors.affiliation: Hefei National Laboratory for Physical Science at the Microscale, Collaborative Innovation Center of Chemistry for Energy Materials, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui, 230026 (P. R. China). zhxid@ustc.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Xiaodong
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Hefei National Laboratory for Physical Science at the Microscale, Collaborative Innovation Center of Chemistry for Energy Materials, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui, 230026 (P. R. China).
authors.forename: Bo
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Fan
authors.affiliation: Hefei National Laboratory for Physical Science at the Microscale, Collaborative Innovation Center of Chemistry for Energy Materials, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui, 230026 (P. R. China).
authors.forename: Jiajia
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Institute of Physics and IMN MacroNano (ZIK), Ilmenau University of Technology, 98693 Ilmenau (Germany).
authors.forename: Min
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Zhou
authors.affiliation: Hefei National Laboratory for Physical Science at the Microscale, Collaborative Innovation Center of Chemistry for Energy Materials, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui, 230026 (P. R. China).
authors.forename: Wenlong
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.affiliation: Hefei National Laboratory for Physical Science at the Microscale, Collaborative Innovation Center of Chemistry for Energy Materials, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui, 230026 (P. R. China).
authors.forename: Xin
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Hu
authors.affiliation: Hefei National Laboratory for Physical Science at the Microscale, Collaborative Innovation Center of Chemistry for Energy Materials, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui, 230026 (P. R. China).
authors.forename: Hui
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Hefei National Laboratory for Physical Science at the Microscale, Collaborative Innovation Center of Chemistry for Energy Materials, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui, 230026 (P. R. China).
authors.forename: Bicai
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Pan
authors.affiliation: Hefei National Laboratory for Physical Science at the Microscale, Collaborative Innovation Center of Chemistry for Energy Materials, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui, 230026 (P. R. China). yxie@ustc.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Yi
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Xie
keywords: electrocatalysis; heterogeneous catalysis; oxygen evolution reaction; oxygen vacancies; spinel phases