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Nano Research 2022, 15(3): 1853-1860 https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-021-3778-0
Research Article | Issue | Published: 29 August 2021

Intermetallic IrGa-IrOx core–shell electrocatalysts for oxygen evolution

Show Author's Information Lin-Wei Chen1,2,§,  Fuxiang He3,4,§,  Ru-Yang Shao1,  Qiang-Qiang Yan1,  Peng Yin1,  Wei-Jie Zeng1,  Ming Zuo1,  Lixin He3,4( ),  Hai-Wei Liang1( )
Division of Nanomaterials & Chemistry, Hefei National Laboratory for Physical Sciences at the Microscale, Department of Chemistry, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230026, China
School of Pharmacy, Anhui University of Chinese Medicine, Hefei 230012, China
Key Laboratory of Quantum Information, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230026, China.
Synergetic Innovation Center of Quantum Information and Quantum Physics, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230026, China

§Lin-Wei Chen and Fuxiang He contributed equally to this work.

Keywords:
oxygen evolution reaction, electrocatalysts, IrGa, intermetallics, core−shell
Topics:
Oxygen evolution reaction
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Chen L-W, He F, Shao R-Y, et al. Intermetallic IrGa-IrOx core–shell electrocatalysts for oxygen evolution. Nano Research, 2022, 15(3): 1853-1860. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-021-3778-0
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Abstract Full text About this article

The development of high-performance Ir-based catalyst for electrocatalysis of oxygen evolution reaction (OER) in acidic media plays a critical role in realizing the commercialization of polymer electrolyte membrane-based water electrolyzer technology. Here we report a low-Ir core–shell OER electrocatalyst consisting of an intermetallic IrGa (IrGa-IMC) core and a partially oxidized Ir (IrOx) shell. In acidic electrolytes, the IrGa-IMC@IrOx core–shell catalysts exhibit a low overpotential of 272 mV at 10 mA·cm−2 with Ir loading of ~20 µg·cm−2 and a mass activity of 841 A·gIr−1 at 1.52 V, which is 3.6 times greater than that of commercial Ir/C (232 A·gIr−1) catalyst. We understand by the density functional theory (DFT) calculations that the enhanced OER activity of the IrGa-IMC@IrOx catalysts is ascribed to the lifted degeneracy of Ir 5d electron of surface IrOx sites induced by the intermetallic IrGa core, which increases the adsorption capacity of IrOx layer for O and OH binding and eventually lowers the energy barrier of the OER rate-determining steps.


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Intermetallic IrGa-IrOx core–shell electrocatalysts for oxygen evolution

Show Author's information Lin-Wei Chen1,2,§, Fuxiang He3,4,§, Ru-Yang Shao1, Qiang-Qiang Yan1, Peng Yin1, Wei-Jie Zeng1, Ming Zuo1, Lixin He3,4( ), Hai-Wei Liang1( )
Division of Nanomaterials & Chemistry, Hefei National Laboratory for Physical Sciences at the Microscale, Department of Chemistry, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230026, China
School of Pharmacy, Anhui University of Chinese Medicine, Hefei 230012, China
Key Laboratory of Quantum Information, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230026, China.
Synergetic Innovation Center of Quantum Information and Quantum Physics, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230026, China

§Lin-Wei Chen and Fuxiang He contributed equally to this work.

Abstract

The development of high-performance Ir-based catalyst for electrocatalysis of oxygen evolution reaction (OER) in acidic media plays a critical role in realizing the commercialization of polymer electrolyte membrane-based water electrolyzer technology. Here we report a low-Ir core–shell OER electrocatalyst consisting of an intermetallic IrGa (IrGa-IMC) core and a partially oxidized Ir (IrOx) shell. In acidic electrolytes, the IrGa-IMC@IrOx core–shell catalysts exhibit a low overpotential of 272 mV at 10 mA·cm−2 with Ir loading of ~20 µg·cm−2 and a mass activity of 841 A·gIr−1 at 1.52 V, which is 3.6 times greater than that of commercial Ir/C (232 A·gIr−1) catalyst. We understand by the density functional theory (DFT) calculations that the enhanced OER activity of the IrGa-IMC@IrOx catalysts is ascribed to the lifted degeneracy of Ir 5d electron of surface IrOx sites induced by the intermetallic IrGa core, which increases the adsorption capacity of IrOx layer for O and OH binding and eventually lowers the energy barrier of the OER rate-determining steps.

Keywords: oxygen evolution reaction, electrocatalysts, IrGa, intermetallics, core−shell

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Publication history
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Acknowledgements

Publication history

Received: 12 June 2021
Revised: 23 July 2021
Accepted: 26 July 2021
Published: 29 August 2021
Issue date: March 2022

Copyright

© Tsinghua University Press and Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2021

Acknowledgements

Acknowledgements

We acknowledge the funding support from the National Key Research and Development Program of China (No. 2018YFA0702001), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 22071225 and 11774327), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (No. WK2060190103), and the Joint Funds from Hefei National Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory (No. KY2060000175), and the support by “the Recruitment Program of Thousand Youth Talents”.

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