Tailoring the activity of NiFe layered double hydroxide with CeCO3OH as highly efficient water oxidation electrocatalyst

Owing to the efficient modulation of the electronic structure of nanomaterials , rare earth elements introduction as promoters into nanomaterials has attracted great attention in oxygen evolution reaction (OER). This work demonstrates the cerium carbonate hydroxide (CeCO 3 OH) in situ grown on nickel foam (NF) supported NiFe layered double hydroxide (LDH) as a novel promoter in OER process. The hybrid material (Ni 0.75 Fe 0.15 Ce 0.10 /NF) possesses excellent performance for OER where the overpotentials at the current densities of 10 mA cm −2 and 100 mA cm −2 are 228 mV and 270 mV, respectively, along with the Tafel slope of 38.3 mV dec −1 . Such performance is comparable in activity to many state-of-the-art electrocatalysts . The enhanced performance in the NiFe LDH can be ascribed to the synergetic interaction between CeCO 3 OH and NiFe LDH by utilizing the advantages of cerium and carbonate in OER. The novelty of our work is the exploration of CeCO 3 OH as a promoter to enhance the OER performance, which expands the application of cerium-based compounds in energy storage and conversion .