In Situ Synthesis of Ternary NiCoRu-Based Layered Double Hydroxide by Chlorine Corrosion toward Electrocatalytic Water Oxidation

Discovering the multimetallic electrocatalyts with more active sites, superstability, and higher active areas toward oxygen evolution reaction (OER) is highly urgent for energy reserves. Herein, this work puts forward a novel ternary NiCoRu-layered double hydroxide (NiCoRu-LDH) synthesized via a facile one-step chloride (Cl–) corrosion for Ni foam (NF) in the situ process as an excellent electrocatalyst toward OER. The introduction of Ru cations prominently altered the electronic properties of NiCo-LDH, exposing more surface active sites, and optimizing the intermediates of adsorption oxygen (OOH*) for water oxidation. As expected, the obtained trimetallic NiCoRu-LDH/NF electrode revealed a fairly low overpotential toward OER (270 mV at 100 mA·cm–2) with a Tafel slope of 40 mV·dec–1 and prolonged stability (55 h at 100 mA·cm–2) in alkaline solution, outperforming most of the hydroxide-based electrocatalysts currently reported. Our work demonstrates an effective approach to designing the highly efficient multimetallic electrodes toward OER.