Ultradispersed Ir x Ni clusters as bifunctional electrocatalysts for high-efficiency water splitting in acid electrolytes

Xiaojie Zhao; Ying Chang; Jiang Ji; Jingchun Jia; Meilin Jia

doi:10.1039/d1ra06136d

Ultradispersed Ir _x Ni clusters as bifunctional electrocatalysts for high-efficiency water splitting in acid electrolytes

RSC Adv. 2021 Oct 8;11(53):33179-33185. doi: 10.1039/d1ra06136d.

Authors

Xiaojie Zhao¹, Ying Chang¹, Jiang Ji¹, Jingchun Jia¹, Meilin Jia¹

Affiliation

¹ College of Chemistry and Environmental Science, Inner Mongolia Key Laboratory of Green Catalysis and Inner Mongolia Collaborative Innovation Center for Water Environment Safety, Inner Mongolia Normal University Hohhot 010022 China [email protected] [email protected].

Abstract

Design and synthesis of electrocatalysts with high activity and low cost is an important challenge for water splitting. We report a rapid and facile synthetic route to obtain Ir _x Ni clusters via polyol reduction. The Ir _x Ni clusters show excellent activity for the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) and hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) in acidic electrolytes. The optimized Ir₂Ni/C clusters exhibit an electrochemical active area of 18.27 mF cm^-2, with the overpotential of OER being 292 mV and HER being 30 mV at 10 mA cm^-2, respectively. In addition, the Ir₂Ni/C used as the cathode and anode for the H-type hydrolysis tank only needs 1.597 V cell voltages. The excellent electrocatalytic performance is mainly attributed to the synergistic effect between the metals and the ultra-fine particle size. This study provides a novel strategy that has a broad application for water splitting.