An efficient and stable Ni–Fe selenides/nitrogen-doped carbon nanotubes in situ-derived electrocatalyst for oxygen evolution reaction

The development of highly active and stable non-noble catalysts for oxygen evolution reaction (OER) is of great importance to advance the sustainable energy conversion devices, but is still a huge challenge. Herein, we have developed an efficient multistep strategy to synthesize a unique hybrid nanostructure by directly growing Ni–Fe selenides nanoparticles onto nitrogen-doped carbon nanotubes (Ni–Fe–Se/N-CNTs), which can act as an in situ-derived electrocatalyst for the efficient and stable OER. It has been discovered that the Ni–Fe bimetallic selenides are in situ converted into the corresponding oxides/peroxides during the OER process, which are responsible for the high activity for OER. The remaining Ni–Fe selenides and the N-CNTs with excellent conductivity, and the strong interaction between active species and N-CNTs also contribute to the fast electron transfer of electrocatalysts and the robust durability. As expected, the as-prepared nanohybrids exhibit a low overpotential of 215 mV at the current density of 10 mA cm−2 and excellent stability in 1.0 M KOH electrolyte. This work underscores the importance of using bimetallic selenide as the efficient template for designing highly active and robust bimetallic species for OER.