Synergic effect of Fe-doping and Ni3S2/MnS heterointerface to boost efficient oxygen evolution reaction

The high overpotential of oxygen evolution reaction (OER) is the main limitation of electrolytic water splitting efficiency for hydrogen production. Herein, Fe doped Ni3S2/MnS heterostructured nanosheets were grown on Ni foam (Fe-Ni3S2/[email protected]) via a simple one-step solvothermal reaction. As-synthesized Fe-Ni3S2/[email protected] exhibits excellent OER electrocatalytic activity in 1 M KOH, with an extremely low overpotential of 259 mV at 50 mA cm−2 as well as a small Tafel slope (39 mV dec−1), much better than Ni3S2-, Fe-doped Ni3S2-, and Ni3S2/MnS- nanosheets grown on NF. Results clearly reveal that the better electrocatalytic performance of Fe-Ni3S2/[email protected] than its rivals is mainly due to the synergistic effect of Fe-doping and Ni3S2/MnS heterojunctions. In details, heterojunction combination with Fe-doping not only improves the conductivity of catalysts but also modulates the electronic configuration of active sites and optimizes the adsorption capacity of oxygen-containing intermediates, thus achieving rapid reaction kinetics and high electrocatalytic performance. This work provides insights into the synergistic regulation of electrocatalytic activity of non-noble catalysts toward high efficiency energy conversion.