In-situ surface reconstructed NiOOH/Ni-ZnSe composite electrocatalysts with high activity toward oxygen evolution reaction in alkaline media

Fabricating long-durability and high-activity electrodes for oxygen evolution reaction (OER) in alkaline electrolyte is of great importance for practical water electrolysis. In this work, we develop a composite catalyst composed of Ni-doped zinc selenide nanoparticles embedded in nitrogen-doped amorphous carbon framework (denoted as Ni-ZnSe composite). Concretely, the systematic investigations disclose that the amorphous nickel (oxy)-hydroxide (NiOOH) in-situ formed on the surface of the hybrid catalyst during the OER process is considered as the genuine active centers. This self-reconstructed electrocatalyst (denoted as NiOOH/Ni-ZnSe) only demands small overpotentials of 218, 242 and 292 mV at the 10, 20 and 50 mA cm-2, respectively, as well as low Tafel slope of 56 mV dec � 1 in alkaline media. XPS characterization reveals that performance enhancement is attributed to the electronic interaction between Ni-ZnSe and nitrogen-doped carbon (NC) that facilitate interfacial electron transfer, which in turn favors improve the oxygen evolution activity. This work not only enhances the electrocatalytic activity of selenide-based catalyst, but also provides a judicious avenue for developing advanced heterometallic doped catalysts toward OER and beyond.