Boron-Doped Graphene Oxide-Supported Nickel Nitride Nanoparticles for Electrocatalytic Oxygen Evolution in Alkaline Electrolytes

The development of efficient oxygen evolution reaction (OER) electrocatalysts is crucial for hydrogen energy economy. While noble-metal-based electrocatalysts show excellent performance in the OER, the scarcity and high cost of noble metals limit their widespread applications. Herein, we report an efficient and stable noble-metal-free catalyst for the OER. We synthesized a high-performance interface catalyst, boron-doped graphene (BGO) nanosheet-supported nickel nitride (Ni3N) nanoparticles BGO/Ni3N, for the OER in alkaline electrolytes. This metal-free catalyst BGO/Ni3N exhibits high electrocatalytic OER activity and kinetics with a low overpotential of 290 mV at a current density of 10 mA·cm–2 and a small Tafel slope of 77.9 mV·dec–1 in a 1 M KOH solution. Moreover, the catalysts show excellent OER stability and durability. The strong electronic coupling between p-type BGO and n-type Ni3N as well as increased electrical conductivity of BGO might be responsible for the good conductivity and fast charge transfer in the OER.