Binderless, Free-Standing Porous Interconnects of Ni-Fe Alloy Decorated Reduced Graphene Oxide for Oxygen Evolution Reaction.

We report the synthesis of lightweight, free-standing Ni-Fe@rGO porous interconnects by carbothermal reduction of Ni-FeOx using graphene oxide (GO) as the reducing agent. Here, we take advantage of the oxygen functionalities present in GO to aid in anchoring the metal ions followed by epoxide-assisted Ni-FeOx@GO network formation. When pyrolyzed under inert conditions, Ni-FeOx@GO networks were converted to Ni-Fe@rGO by simple carbothermal metal reduction at 800 °C. The Ni-Fe@rGO monoliths were found to be macroporous, electrically conducting, and electrocatalytic toward oxygen evolution reaction (OER). The monoliths exhibited excellent OER activity yielding a current density of 10 mA cm at an overpotential of 350 mV versus RHE, Tafel slope of 38 mV decade, and a TOF value of 50 s on par with the established Ni-Fe based electrocatalysts.