Methanol steam mediated corrosion engineering towards high-entropy NiFe layered double hydroxide for ultra-stable oxygen evolution

Abstract

Rational design of viable routes to obtain efficient and stable oxygen evolution reaction (OER) electrocatalysts remains challenging, especially under industrial conditions. Here, we provide a solvent-steam assisted corrosion engineering strategy to directly fabricate high-entropy NiFe-LDH with spatially resolved structural order. Ammonium fluoride in methanol steam enables the formation of nanosheets while Fe³⁺ effectively enhances their adhesion to the semi-sacrificial nickel-iron foam (NFF), thereby conjuring up a NiFe-LDH@NFF catalyst that exhibits remarkable adaptability to robust electrochemical activation yet with excellent stability. Comprehensive measurements reveal the in-situ formation of high-valance metal oxyhydroxide and the enhancement of adsorption-desorption process. Under the industrial condition (6 mol/L KOH, 60 °C), the NiFe-LDH@NFF exhibits excellent activity of 50 mA/cm² at 1.55 V and high durability of over 120 h at 200 mA/cm². We anticipate that the steam assisted strategy could promote the development of efficient non-precious electrocatalysts for hydrogen energy.