Thin porous nanosheets of NiFe layered-double hydroxides toward a highly efficient electrocatalyst for water oxidation

NiFe layered double hydroxides (NiFe-LDH) are low cost and earth abundant electrocatalysts for oxygen evolution reaction (OER). Herein, the NiFe-LDH nanosheets induced by ZIF-67 (NiFe-LDH/ZIF-67) were prepared via a coupling method of a self-sacrificing template method and a co-precipitation method. Atomic force microscope and field emission transmission electron microscopy analysis indicate that NiFe-LDH/ZIF-67 consist of thin porous nanosheets. X-ray photoelectron spectra analysis show that NiFe-LDH/ZIF-67 contains more oxygen vacancies than pristine NiFe-LDH. The overpotential of NiFe-LDH/ZIF-67 is 222 mV at 10 mA cm−2 for OER, lower than that of ZIF-67, pristine NiFe-LDH, and the commercial RuO2, indicating that its high electrocatalytic activity for OER. The high electrocatalytic activity of NiFe-LDH/ZIF-67 may be attributed to its thin porous nanosheet structure, which is derived from the structural influence of ZIF-67 and the coupling effect of a self-sacrificing template method and a co-precipitation method.