Straightforward preparation of nickel selenide nanosheets supported on nickel foam as a highly efficient electrocatalyst for oxygen evolution reaction

The development of economical, durable, and efficient oxygen evolution reaction (OER) electrocatalysts is essential for large-scale industrial water electrolysis. Here, a straightforward strategy is proposed to synthesize a series of nickel selenide nanosheets supported on nickel foam (NiSe2/NF) materials by directly selenizing nickel foam substrates at different temperatures under an inert atmosphere. When evaluated as electrocatalysts in OER, the optimal self-supported NiSe2/NF-350 shows an excellent performance in 1.0 M KOH medium with an overpotential of 458 mV at 100 mA cm−2, a small Tafel slope of 45.8 mV dec−1, and a long-term stability for 36 h. Furthermore, the structural and compositional preservation for NiSe2/NF-350 after stability test was also verified by various characterizations.