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 (CeCO3OH) in situ grown on nickel foam (NF) supported NiFe layered double hydroxide (LDH) as a novel promoter in OER process. The hybrid material (Ni0.75Fe0.15Ce0.10/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 CeCO3OH and NiFe LDH by utilizing the advantages of cerium and carbonate in OER. The novelty of our work is the exploration of CeCO3OH as a promoter to enhance the OER performance, which expands the application of cerium-based compounds in energy storage and conversion.