Triggering the oxide path mechanism of oxygen evolution reaction: Introducing compressive strain on NiFe-LDH by partial replacement using Ba cations

Zhaoyan Li; Duo Wang; Hongguang Kang; Zhongning Shi; Xianwei Hu; Hongbin Sun; Junli Xu

doi:10.1016/j.jcis.2025.137329

Triggering the oxide path mechanism of oxygen evolution reaction: Introducing compressive strain on NiFe-LDH by partial replacement using Ba cations

J Colloid Interface Sci. 2025 Jul 15:690:137329. doi: 10.1016/j.jcis.2025.137329. Epub 2025 Mar 13.

Authors

Zhaoyan Li¹, Duo Wang², Hongguang Kang², Zhongning Shi², Xianwei Hu², Hongbin Sun¹, Junli Xu³

Affiliations

¹ College of Science, Northeastern University, Shenyang 110819 Liaoning, China.
² Key Laboratory for Ecological Metallurgy of Multimetallic Mineral (Ministry of Education), Northeastern University, Shenyang 110819 Liaoning, China.
³ College of Science, Northeastern University, Shenyang 110819 Liaoning, China. Electronic address: jlxu@mail.neu.edu.cn.

PMID: 40117886
DOI: 10.1016/j.jcis.2025.137329

Abstract

NiFe layered double hydroxides (NiFe-LDHs) as an oxygen evolution reaction (OER) catalyst show great potential in alkaline water electrolysis. However, its electrocatalytic activity along with good stability is still an obstacle for practical utilization. In this work, we partially replace the metal ions of original NiFe-LDH with Ba cations to construct compression strain and trigger the oxide path mechanism (OPM) of OER. The experimental and theoretical calculation results show that the replacement with Ba cations in the original NiFe-LDH results in shortened distance of two adjacent Ni sites and a decreased d-band center, which promote the direct coupling of *O-*O radical and enhance O₂ desorption ability. Attributable to the improved catalytic activity and kinetics of OER, the NiFe-LDH partially replaced with Ba cations presents a low overpotential of 241 mV at 500 mA cm^-2 and remains stable for 100 h at 200 mA cm^-2. Our study provides a chemical after-treatment method to introduce compressive strain in the NiFe-LDH and trigger the OPM in OER for alkaline water electrolysis.

Keywords: Cation replacement; Compressive strain; Layered double hydroxides; Oxide path mechanism; Oxygen evolution reaction.