In situ direct growth of flower-like hierarchical architecture of CoNi-layered double hydroxide on Ni foam as an efficient self-supported oxygen evolution electrocatalyst

Exploring economical, efficient and robust electrocatalysts toward the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) is one of the key issues in water splitting technology. Nanostructure engineering of electrocatalysts and hybridizing active species with a conductive support represent powerful strategies to enhance the electrocatalytic performance. Herein, we report a facile one-step solvothermal method to directly grow 3D CoNi-layered double hydroxide (LDH) flower-like architectures onto porous and conductive Ni foam (NF) substrate (denoted as CoNi-LDH(2:1)@NF hereafter). The flower-like hierarchical architecture of CoNi-LDHs with open configurations endows CoNi-LDH microflowers with sufficient accessible active sites and efficient mass diffusion paths. Moreover, the in situ direct growth manner ensures an intimate contact between the electroactive CoNi-LDHs and NF substrate and thus the charge transfer resistance is reduced. Consequently, the as-formed self-supported and binder-free electrode of CoNi-LDH(2:1)@NF exhibits an outstanding OER performance with a small overpotential of 283 mV at a relatively large current density of 50 mA cm−2 and a remarkable long-term electrochemical durability in 0.1 M KOH solution, holding great promise in practical scale-up water electrolysis. The present study may open a new avenue to design and fabricate cost-effective and high-efficiency electrocatalysts for energy conversion applications.