In Situ Electrochemical Conversion of an Ultrathin Tannin Nickel Iron Complex Film as an Efficient Oxygen Evolution Reaction Electrocatalyst

The oxygen evolution reaction (OER) is an important half reaction in many energy conversion and storage techniques. However, the development of a low-cost easy-prepared OER electrocatalyst with high mass activity and rapid kinetics is still challenging. Herein, we report the facile deposition of tannin-NiFe (TANF) complex film on carbon fiber paper (CP) as a highly efficient OER electrocatalyst. TANF gives rapid OER reaction kinetics with a very small Tafel slope of 28 mV dec-1 . The mass activity of TANF reaches 9.17×103 Ag-1 at an overpotential of 300 mV, which is nearly 200-times larger than that of NiFe double layered hydroxide. Furthermore, tannic acid in TANF can be electrochemically extracted under anodic potential, leaving the inorganic composite Nix Fe1-x Oy Hz as the OER-active species. This work may provide a guide to probing the electrochemical transformation and investigating the reactive species of other metal-organic complexes as heterogeneous electrocatalysts.