Conversion of magnetron-sputtered sacrificial intermediate layer into a stable FeCo-LDH catalyst for oxygen evolution reaction

• Published in: Nano research 2024-05, Vol.17 (5), p.4307-4313
• Main Authors: Lang, Zhiquan, Song, Guang-Ling, Liao, Xingpeng, Huang, Wenzhong, Zhu, Yixing, Wang, Haipeng, Zheng, Dajiang
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Atomic/Molecular Structure and Spectra; Biomedicine; Biotechnology; Catalysts; Chemistry and Materials Science; Condensed Matter Physics; Controllability; Corrosion; Electrocatalysis; Electrocatalysts; Hydrogen; Hydroxides; Magnetron sputtering; Materials Science; Nanotechnology; Nickel; Oxidation; Oxygen evolution reactions; Research Article; Sputtered films; Synthesis; Transition metals
• ISSN: 1998-0124; 1998-0000
• DOI: 10.1007/s12274-023-6385-4

Controllable and scalable preparation of electrocatalyst materials holds significant importance for their practical application. Magnetron sputtering is a highly effective synthesis method, known for its producing uniform films and allowing easy control of component compositions. In this paper, we propose an in-situ synthesis method for layered double hydroxide (LDH) electrocatalysts through sacrificing magnetron sputtered films. The resulting FeCo-LDH catalyst demonstrated a low overpotential of only 300 mV at 10 mA·cm −2 . Furthermore, we conducted spectroscopic analysis to investigate the surface changes of the catalysts during the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) process. Our findings indicated that the formation of Co oxyhydroxides plays a beneficial role in enhancing the catalytical performance of the FeCo-LDH for OER reaction. This restructuring strategy of converting a magnetron-sputtered sacrificial film into a catalytical LDH introduces a new avenue to the synthesis of transition metal-based electrocatalysts.