Controllable Synthesis of Fe-Doped NiCo2 O4 Nanobelts as Superior Catalysts for Oxygen Evolution Reaction.

As one of the promising clean and renewable technologies, water splitting has been a hot topic, especially the half-reaction of oxygen evolution reaction (OER) due to its sluggish and complex kinetics. Hence, Fe-doped NiCo2 O4 nanobelts were designed and prepared as catalysts toward OER. By increasing the Fe amount, the catalytic performances of the as-synthesized products went up and then decreased. Profiting from the synergistic effect between Fe atom and NiCo2 O4 , all the Fe-NiCo2 O4 catalysts exhibited superior catalytic activities to the corresponding NiCo2 O4 . In addition, the characteristic nanobelt architecture facilitates the conduction of electrons and the exposure of active sites. With the optimal Fe content, the 9.1 % Fe-NiCo2 O4 yielded the smallest overpotential and Tafel slope among the catalysts, distinctly lower than that of RuO2 .