Hetero-structure induced high performance catalyst for oxygen
evolution reaction (OER) in the water splitting reaction has received increased
attention. Herein, we demonstrated a novel catalyst system of NiSe
2-CoSe
2 consisting of nanorods and nanoparticles for the efficient OER in the alkaline
electrolyte. This catalyst system can be easily fabricated via a
low-temperature selenization of the solvothermal synthesized NiCo(OH)
x precursor and the unique morphology
of hybrid nanorods and nanoparticles was found by the electron microscopy
analysis. The high valence state of the metal species was indicated by X-ray
photoelectron spectroscopy study and a strong electronic effect was found in
the NiSe
2-CoSe
2 catalyst system compared to their
counterparts. As a result, NiSe
2-CoSe
2 exhibited high
catalytic performance with a low overpotential of 250 mV to reach 10 mA·cm
-2 for OER in the alkaline solution. Furthermore, high catalytic stability and
catalytic kinetics were also observed. The superior performance can be
attributed to the high
valence states of Ni and Co and their strong
synergetic coupling effect between the nanorods and nanoparticles, which could accelerate the charge transfer and
offer abundant electrocatalytic active sites. The current work offers an
efficient hetero-structure catalyst system for OER, and the results are helpful
for the catalysis understanding.