In-situ growth of Ni2.86Te2 and Mo6Te8 telluride catalysts on foam NiMo substrates for enhanced oxygen evolution performance

Non precious metal materials have attracted much attention in oxygen evolution reactions (OER) due to their abundant reserves and low cost. However, due to their thermodynamic instability, they typically exhibit high reaction barriers, poor stability, and fewer active sites. In response to this challenge, this paper studied the in-situ growth of Ni 2.86 Te 2 and Mo 6 Te 8 multiphase telluride catalysts on foam nickel molybdenum (NM) substrates, and revealed their excellent catalytic performance in OER. The research results show that the catalyst has an overpotential of 300 mV and a Tafel slope of 78.61 mV·dec −1 at a current density of 20 mA cm −2 , and its performance is comparable to that of the precious metal catalyst RuO 2 . After 60 h of electrolysis, the catalyst showed no significant deactivation and exhibited good stability. Density functional theory (DFT) calculations further indicate that the electronic coupling between Ni 2.86 Te 2 and Mo 6 Te 8 enhances charge transfer, reduces the energy barrier of the rate determining step (RDS), and the abundant active sites on local atomic doping on the surface significantly enhance OER activity, providing new ideas for developing highly active and stable non precious metal catalysts for oxygen evolution.