Amorphous 3D pomegranate-like NiCoFe nanoassemblies derived by bi-component cyanogel reduction for outstanding oxygen evolution reaction

As a representative type of self-supported templates, cyano-bridged cyanogels provide ideal plateaus for synthesis of three-dimensional (3D) nanostructures. Herein, 3D pomegranate-like Fe-doped NiCo nanoassemblies (3D PG-NiCoFe NAs) were synthesized via facile one-step bi-component cyanogel reduction with NaBH 4 as the reducing agent. Specifically, the influence of the incorporated Fe amount was carefully investigated by finely adjusting the feeding molar ratios of the Ni/Co/Fe atoms in the precursors. By virtue of the unique structure and enriched oxygen vacancies originated from well-modulated electronic structures, the 3D PG-NiCoFe-211 NAs exhibited outstanding electrocatalytic performances for oxygen evolution reaction (OER) in alkaline solution, outperforming commercial RuO 2 catalyst. The current incorporation of foreign metal atom into host material provides some valuable insights into design and synthesis of metal-based nanocatalysts for constructing practical water splitting devices.