A Universal Strategy to Design Superior Water-Splitting Electrocatalysts Based on Fast In Situ Reconstruction of Amorphous Nanofilm Precursors

Abstract

© 2018 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim The development of efficient bifunctional electrodes with extraordinary mass activity and robust stability is an eternal yet challenging goal for the water-splitting process. Surface reconstruction during electrocatalysis can form fresh-composition electrocatalysts with unusual amorphous phases in situ, which are more active but difficult to prepare by conventional methods. Here, a facile strategy based on fast reconstruction of amorphous nanofilm precursors is proposed for exploring precious-metal-free catalysts with good electronic conductivity, ultrahigh activity, and robust stability. As a proof of concept, an amorphous SrCo0.85Fe0.1P0.05O3-d (SCFP) nanofilm precursor with weak chemical bonds deposited onto a conductive nickel foam (NF) substrate (SCFP-NF) is synthesized by utilizing a high-energy argon plasma to break the strong chemical bonds in a crystalline SCFP target. The quickly reconstructed SCFP-NF bifunctional catalysts show ultrahigh mass activity of up to 1000 mA mg-1 at an overpotential of 550 mV and extremely long operational stability of up to 650 h at 10 mA cm-2, significantly overperforming state-of-the-art precious-metal catalysts. Such a strategy is further demonstrated to be a universal method, which can be applied to accelerate the reconstruction of other material systems to obtain various efficient electrocatalysts.