Layered Phosphate-Incorporated Nickel–Cobalt Hydrosilicates for Highly Efficient Oxygen Evolution Electrocatalysis

Abstract

Design and discovery of highly efficient and cost-effective materials for electrocatalytic oxygen evolution reaction (OER) based on Earth-abundant elements is highly desired but still a great challenge. As is generally known, silicon is an element of second abundance in the Earth’s crust. We herein chose the silicon element for the desgin and fabrication of OER-active layered nickel cobalt hydrosilicates (NCS) and found that a phosphate-incorporated strategy can significantly enhance the OER performance of the host hydrosilicates. The resulting NCS:P electrocatalyst can generate much larger catalytic current than that of NCS at the same applied potential, which is even superior to that of Ni(OH)2 and Co(OH)2 references in 1.0 M KOH. It is expected that structural and composition synergies endow NCS:P with attractive performance.