More than physical support: The effect of nickel foam corrosion on electrocatalytic performance

[Display omitted] •Corrosion behaviors of nickel foam substrates during hydrothermal process are investigated.•A considerable number of nickel ions are detected in the non-nickel containing solution.•Increasing temperature leads to more nickel incorporated into the non-nickel based electrocatalysts....

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Applied surface science 2021-02, Vol.538, p.147977, Article 147977
Main Authors: Bu, Xiuming, Wei, Renjie, Cai, Zhengyang, Quan, Quan, Zhang, Heng, Wang, Wei, Li, Fangzhou, Yip, Sen Po, Meng, You, Chan, Kwok Sum, Wang, Xianying, Ho, Johnny C.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Corrosion
Electrocatalyst
Electrocatalytic
Hydrothemal
Nickel foam
Solvothermal
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Summary:[Display omitted] •Corrosion behaviors of nickel foam substrates during hydrothermal process are investigated.•A considerable number of nickel ions are detected in the non-nickel containing solution.•Increasing temperature leads to more nickel incorporated into the non-nickel based electrocatalysts.•Special cautions and considerations should be made when employing nickel foams as substrates. Nickle foams (NFs) have been widely used as substrates to support various electrocatalysts due to their extended framework structures, low-cost and high-conductivity. At the same time, as a kind of relatively active metals, nickel substrates are also prone to get corroded or chemically etched during hydro-/solvothermal synthesis of catalyst materials. However, as far as we know, when using NFs as the scaffold to support Ni-free electrocatalysts, most of the published works overlook or even ignore the effect of nickel corrosion on the activities of electrocatalysts directly fabricated on NFs. By using a simple comparison method, we systematically studied such effects from the aspects of material-synthesis temperature, precursors and aqueous solution involved. Our results indicate that the nickel substrates do indeed corrode with ions out-diffused into the reaction solution and incorporated into the fabricated electrocatalysts, which in turn affect their electrocatalytic performances. Special cautions and considerations should be made accordingly when employing nickel foams as substrates for electrocatalysts.
ISSN:0169-4332
1873-5584
DOI:10.1016/j.apsusc.2020.147977