Amorphous Fe(OH)3 electro-deposited on 3D cubic MnCO3 for enhanced oxygen evolution

Developing efficient and inexpensive electrocatalysts for the oxygen evolution reaction is essential for water splitting technologies. Herein, Fe(OH)3/MnCO3 electrocatalyst with a three-dimensional cubic structure was synthesized using a hydrothermal method with step-by-step electrodeposition onto Ni foam. The developed system exhibited excellent catalytic performance with a low overpotential (213 mV) at 10 mA/cm2 and a Tafel slope of only 31.8 mV/dec in alkaline solution. The remarkable performance was ascribed to the close combination of amorphous structure Fe(OH)3 and crystal structure MnCO3, which greatly promoted the OER performance for the synergistic effect between Fe(OH)3 and MnCO3. This work describes a feasible method for constructing multidimensional structures, which may contribute to an effective strategy for developing high-performance OER electrocatalysts.