Spherical Ni3S2/Fe‐NiPx Magic Cube with Ultrahigh Water/Seawater Oxidation Efficiency

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Abstract
The rational construction of earth‐abundant and advanced electrocatalysts for oxygen evolution reaction (OER) is extremely desired and significant to seawater electrolysis. Herein, by directly etching Ni3S2 nanosheets through potassium ferricyanide, a novel self‐sacrificing template strategy is proposed to realize the in situ growth of NiFe‐based Prussian blue analogs (NiFe PBA) on Ni3S2 in an interfacial redox reaction. The well‐designed Ni3S2@NiFe PBA composite as precursor displays a unique spherical magic cube architecture composed of nanocubes, which even maintains after a phosphating treatment to obtain the derived Ni3S2/Fe‐NiPx on nickel foam. Specifically, in alkaline seawater, the Ni3S2/Fe‐NiPx as OER precatalyst marvelously realizes the ultralow overpotentials of 336 and 351 mV at large current densities of 500 and 1000 mA cm–2, respectively, with remarkable durability for over 225 h, outperforming most reported advanced OER electrocatalysts. Experimentally, a series of characterization results confirm the reconstruction behavior in the Ni3S2/Fe‐NiPx surface, leading to the in situ formation of Ni(OH)2/Ni(Fe)OOH with abundant oxygen vacancies and grain boundaries, which constructs the Ni3S2/Fe‐NiPx reconstruction system responsible for the remarkable OER catalytic activity. Theoretical calculation results further verify the enhanced OER activity for Ni3S2/Fe‐NiPx reconstruction system, and unveil that the Fe‐Ni2P/FeOOH as active origin contributes to the central OER activity.
Funding Information
  • National Natural Science Foundation of China (22179104, 22075223)
  • Wuhan University of Technology (2021‐ZD‐4)

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