Ultrathin Ni(0)‐Embedded Ni(OH)2 Heterostructured Nanosheets with Enhanced Electrochemical Overall Water Splitting

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Abstract
The efficiency of splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen is highly dependent on the catalyst used. Herein, ultrathin Ni(0)‐embedded Ni(OH)2 heterostructured nanosheets, referred to as Ni/Ni(OH)2 nanosheets, with superior water splitting activity are synthesized by a partial reduction strategy. This synthetic strategy confers the heterostructured Ni/Ni(OH)2 nanosheets with abundant Ni(0)‐Ni(II) active interfaces for hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) and Ni(II) defects as transitional active sites for oxygen evolution reaction (OER). The obtained Ni/Ni(OH)2 nanosheets exhibit noble metal‐like electrocatalytic activities toward overall water splitting in alkaline condition, to offer 10 mA cm−2 in HER and OER, the required overpotentials are only 77 and 270 mV, respectively. Based on such an outstanding activity, a water splitting electrolysis cell using the Ni/Ni(OH)2 nanosheets as the cathode and anode electrocatalysts has been successfully built. When the output voltage of the electrolytic cell is 1.59 V, a current density of 10 mA cm−2 can be obtained. Moreover, the durability of Ni/Ni(OH)2 nanosheets in the alkaline electrolyte is much better than that of noble metals. No obvious performance decay is observed after 20 h of catalysis. This facile strategy paves the way for designing highly active non‐precious‐metal catalyst to generate both hydrogen and oxygen by electrolyzing water at room temperature.
Funding Information
  • Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China (MOE2015‐T2‐2‐057, MOE2016‐T2‐2‐103, MOE2017‐T2‐1‐162, 2016‐T1‐002‐051, 2017‐T1‐001‐150, 2017‐T1‐002‐119)
  • Nanyang Technological University (M4081296.070.500000)
  • Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A1783c0009)

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