NiFe2O4 spinel supported CoCr-LDH nanosheets for efficient oxygen evolution catalysis

Developing high-performance non-noble metal-based electrocatalysts for oxygen evolution reaction (OER) is important for hydrogen production from water electrolysis. In this work, a unique method to simultaneously improve the catalytic activity and stability of NiFe 2 O 4 spinel is carried out through heterogeneous nucleation sintering. So that the resultant corrugated CoCr-LDH nanosheets can strongly combine onto NiFe 2 O 4 surfaces to form finned structures, which enhances the surface area and OER catalytic performance of the resultant catalysts. The optimized NiFe 2 O 4 @CoCr-LDH/NF exhibits excellent OER performance with a low overpotential of 193 mV at 10 mA cm −2 and a low Tafel slope (27.5 mV dec −1 ), and outstanding stability performance. Furthermore, the NiFe 2 O 4 @CoCr-LDH/NF also displays attractive bifunctional catalytic activities, which achieves an ultra-low voltage for overall water splitting of 1.546 V at 10 mA cm −2 . These results indicate that NiFe 2 O 4 @CoCr-LDH/NF is a promising low-cost catalyst for hydrogen production through water splitting.