Nickel oxide nanoparticles dispersed on biomass-derived amorphous carbon/cobalt silicate support accelerate the oxygen evolution reaction.

The development of robust, low-cost and efficient oxygen evolution reaction (OER) electrocatalysts, especially non-noble-metal-based OER catalysts, is of great significance and imperative to address the energy crisis, but remain challenging. Herein, a biomass-derived three-dimensional (3D) porous carbon/cobalt silicate (C/CoSiO) architecture is developed as a support for loading nickel oxide (NiO) species to prepare an earth-abundant and non-noble-metal-based NiO/C/CoSiO electrocatalyst. The NiO nanoparticles are dispersed on 3D C/CoSiO support and the introduction of NiO species improves the OER active sites and shows the bimetal (Co, Ni) synergetic effect. The NiO/C/CoSiO electrocatalyst exhibits the overpotential with 355 mV at 10 mA cm, Tafel slope with 40 mV dec and large electrochemical active surface areas (ECSA), which are superior to C/CoSiO support and NiO. The catalytic properties achieved herein are superior or comparable to most transition metal oxides/hydroxides. The findings reveal that the introduction of NiO nanoparticles can greatly boost the OER property of C/CoSiO support. This work not only develops a non-noble-metal-based NiO/C/CoSiO catalyst, but also verifies that the introduction of metal oxide species on biomass-derived 3D C/CoSiO provides a new horizon to explore economical, high-efficient and robust OER catalysts.