Authors: Fan Zhang, Ke Wang, Hui Zhang, Shiliu Yang, Mai Xu, Yi He, Lecheng Lei, Pengfei Xie, Xingwang Zhang
Published: 2025-03-10
Source: Full article
AbstractThe sluggish kinetics of the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) critically limit the efficiency of anion exchange membrane water electrolysis (AEMWE). Herein, a Ce‐doped bimetallic Fe2P/NiCoP hybrid pre‐catalyst that undergoes dynamic reconstruction to activate a highly efficient OER pathway is designed. The optimized Ce0.1‐Fe2P/NiCoP exhibits an impressively low overpotential of 280 mV at 0.5 A cm−2 and a small Tafel slope of 55.3 mV dec−1 in a 1.0 M KOH. Remarkably, when integrated as the anode in an AEMWE electrolyzer, it delivers a low cell voltage of 1.812 V at 1.0 A cm−2 and maintains stable performance for over 500 h at 60 °C. In situ characterizations and density functional theory (DFT) calculations reveal that Ce‐doping enhances surface reconstruction and modulates the electronic structure, thereby reducing energy barriers for intermediates (ΔG*OH and ΔG*OOH) formation and accelerating OER kinetics. This work introduces a novel strategy to utilize catalyst reconstruction, advancing their applications in AEMWE systems.