Regulating Electronic Structure of Iron Nitride by Tungsten Nitride Nanosheets for Accelerated Overall Water Splitting

Abstract

Two essential characteristics that are required for hybrid electrocatalysts to exhibit higher oxygen and hydrogen evolution reaction (OER and HER, respectively) activity are a favorable electronic configuration and a sufficient density of active sites at the interface between the two materials within the hybrid. In the present study, a hybrid electrocatalyst is introduced with a novel architecture consisting of coral‐like iron nitride (Fe2N) arrays and tungsten nitride (W2N3) nanosheets that satisfies these requirements. The resulting W2N3/Fe2N catalyst achieves high OER activity (268.5 mV at 50 mA cm−2) and HER activity (85.2 mV at 10 mA cm−2) with excellent long‐term durability in an alkaline medium. In addition, density functional theory calculations reveal that the individual band centers experience an upshift in the hybrid W2N3/Fe2N structure, thus improving the OER and HER activity. The strategy adopted here thus provides a valuable guide for the fabrication of cost‐effective multi‐metallic crystalline hybrids for use as multifunctional electrocatalysts.

Engineering hierarchical snowflake-like multi-metal selenide catalysts anchored on Ni foam for high-efficiency and stable overall water splitting

“…The peaks of W-CoO/NF at 37.68 eV and 35.48 eV correspond to W 4f 5/2 and W 4f 7/2 , respectively. 46–48 The corresponding peak values of W-CoSe300/NF are 37.08 eV and 34.98 eV, respectively. The peak value also shifted negatively with an average value of 0.55 eV.…”

Production of hydrogen via water oxidation using mesoporous‐assembled SiO2@TiN nanocomposite electrocatalyst

“…In addition, the complementary effect between transition metal oxides and nitride materials can greatly improve their functionality, electrical conductivity, surface-tovolume ratio, and stability. [28][29][30][31][32][33] A superior electrochemical response was achieved by S. Chandra Sekhar et. al mesoporous Co@NiO-SiO 2 electrode.…”

“…These defects are beneficial for electrocatalytic oxygen evolution reaction. In addition, the complementary effect between transition metal oxides and nitride materials can greatly improve their functionality, electrical conductivity, surface‐to‐volume ratio, and stability [28–33] . A superior electrochemical response was achieved by S. Chandra Sekhar et.…”

CDs Regulated Sulfur‐Based Flexible Electrode with Range pH Values for Efficient and Durable Hydrogen Evolution Reaction

“…[ 10,19,20 ] However, how to realize the mild, economical, and large‐scale preparation of NiS‐series catalytic electrodes is a problem of sulfur‐based materials and its performance is still far from the requirements of practical applications. [ 21,22 ]…”