Steel Mesh Reinforced Ni(OH)2 Nanosheets with Enhanced Oxygen Evolution Reaction Performance

Water splitting is one of the most promising technology to solve the current energy and environmental issues. The high overpotential and sluggish kinetics of the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) seriously hinders the energy conversion efficiency of the full water splitting. Therefore, it is of great significance to develop high-active and stable OER catalytic materials for improving the energy transfer efficiency and durability. In this work, we prepared the Ni(OH)2/stainless steel wire mesh (SSWM) self-supporting electrode by a simple one-step method. This in-situ growth method can accurate controllability for improving activity of the catalysts, efficaciously inhibit the self-aggregation of Ni(OH)2, and the obtained two-dimensional array of oriented nanosheets can quickly promote the acquisition of electrolytes and gas release. The integrated Ni(OH)2/SSWM electrodes possess prominent conductivity, abundant porous structure and high specific surface area. As OER catalysts, this obtained electrodes exhibit the relatively low overpotential of 223 mV and low Tafel slope of 25.2 mV dec-1 at 10 mA cm-2. Moreover, the integrated Ni(OH)2/SSWM electrodes possess stable long-term performance (60 hours). Therefore, this research provides a novel strategy for large-scale production of highly active integrated OER electrodes.