Corrosion-driven Fe3+-assisted dynamic healing endows NiFe-(oxy)hydroxides with durable industrial-level water oxidation

The reasonable design of oxygen evolution reaction (OER) catalysts that simultaneously combine low energy consumption, high activity, and long-term durability under industrial-level conditions is crucial for the practical deployment of water electrolysis for hydrogen production. In the present work, a novel spontaneous electrochemical corrosion (SEC) strategy is employed to in-situ prepare the well-aligned NiFe-based (oxy)hydroxides nanosheet array film on Ni foam (NiFe-OH/NF). The resulting electrode can be fabricated at a cost of only $0.0058 per cm 2 and is readily scalable. Operating as an OER catalyst in alkaline solution, NiFe-OH/NF requires an overpotential of merely 213 ± 2 mV to deliver 10 mA cm −2 . More importantly, the SEC-derived NiFe-OH/NF exhibits a dynamic Fe-replenishment process during OER, in which dissolved Fe species are partially reincorporated into the catalyst surface, thereby mitigating deactivation and enabling superior durability. As a result, NiFe-OH/NF operates stably for more than 126 days (> 3024 h) at an industrial-level current density of 500 mA cm −2 in 1 M KOH containing 0.1 mM Fe 3+ . This work demonstrates a low-cost and scalable route to NiFe-based OER electrodes that simultaneously deliver competitive activity and remarkable durability, offering strong promise for practical alkaline water electrolysis. It presents a breakthrough to expand the commercial application of H 2 through designing an industrial-level oxygen evolution reaction (OER) electrode (NiFe-OH/NF) by a novel spontaneous electrochemical corrosion strategy, which simultaneously addresses the critical challenges of low energy consumption, high activity, and long-term durability in alkaline water electrolysis. Download: Download high-res image (196KB) Download: Download full-size image