Overall water splitting by graphdiyne-exfoliated and -sandwiched layered double-hydroxide nanosheet arrays

• Published in: Nature communications 2018-12, Vol.9 (1), p.5309-11, Article 5309
• Main Authors: Hui, Lan, Xue, Yurui, Huang, Bolong, Yu, Huidi, Zhang, Chao, Zhang, Danyan, Jia, Dianzeng, Zhao, Yingjie, Li, Yongjun, Liu, Huibiao, Li, Yuliang
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: 140/133; 140/146; 147/135; 147/137; 147/143; 147/3; 639/301/299/886; 639/4077/909; 639/638/77/884; Arrays; Carbon; Charge transport; Chemistry; Cobalt; Conductivity; Electrocatalysts; Electrode materials; Electrodes; Evolution; Fabrication; Flexibility; Humanities and Social Sciences; Hydrogen; Hydrogen evolution reactions; Hydrogen storage; Iron; Kinetics; Laboratories; Materials selection; Metal foams; Microscopy; Morphology; multidisciplinary; Nanosheets; Nickel; Oxygen; Oxygen evolution reactions; Polymers; Reaction kinetics; Renewable energy; Science; Science (multidisciplinary); Splitting; System effectiveness; Water splitting
• ISSN: 2041-1723; 2041-1723
• DOI: 10.1038/s41467-018-07790-x

It is of great urgency to develop efficient, cost-effective, stable and industrially applicable electrocatalysts for renewable energy systems. But there are still few candidate materials. Here we show a bifunctional electrocatalyst, comprising graphdiyne-exfoliated and -sandwiched iron/cobalt layered double-hydroxide nanosheet arrays grown on nickel foam, for the oxygen and hydrogen evolution reactions. Theoretical and experimental data revealed that the charge transport kinetics of the structure were superior to iron/cobalt layered double-hydroxide, a prerequisite for improved electrocatalytic performance. The incorporation with graphdiyne increased the number of catalytically active sites and prevented corrosion, leading to greatly enhanced electrocatalytic activity and stability for oxygen evolution reaction, hydrogen evolution reaction, as well as overall water splitting. Our results suggest that the use of graphdiyne might open up new pathways for the design and fabrication of earth-abundant, efficient, functional, and smart electrode materials with practical applications. The need for cheap water-splitting materials in order to scale-up and commercialize solar-to-fuel technologies is urgent, but there are still few candidate materials. Here, authors integrate layered double hydroxides with graphdiyne as high-performance overall water-splitting electrocatalysts.