Enhancing electrochemical water-splitting efficiency with superaerophobic nickel-coated catalysts on Chinese rice paper.

The quest for efficient hydrogen production highlights the need for cost-effective and high-performance catalysts to enhance the electrochemical water-splitting process. A significant challenge in developing self-supporting catalysts lies in the high cost and complex modification of traditional substrates. In this study, we developed catalysts featuring superaerophobic microstructures engineered on microspherical nickel-coated Chinese rice paper (Ni-RP), chosen for its affordability and exceptional ductility. These catalysts, due to their microspherical morphology and textured surface, exhibited significant superaerophobic properties, substantially reducing bubble adhesion. The nickel oxy-hydroxide (NiO _x H _y ) and phosphorus-doped nickel (PNi) catalysts on Ni-RP demonstrated effective roles in oxygen evolution reaction (OER) and hydrogen evolution reaction (HER), achieving overpotentials of 250 mV at 20 mA cm ^-2 and 87 mV at -10 mA cm ^-2 in 1 M KOH, respectively. Moreover, a custom water-splitting cell using PNi/Ni-RP and NiO _x H _y /Ni-RP electrodes reached an impressive average voltage of 1.55 V at 10 mA cm ^-2 , with stable performance over 100 h in 1 M KOH. Our findings present a cost-effective, sustainable, and easily modifiable substrate that utilizes superaerophobic structures to create efficient and durable catalysts for water splitting. This work serves as a compelling example of designing high-performance self-supporting catalysts for electrocatalytic applications.
Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
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