Abstract
The structure-property relationship in transition metal oxides is of crucial importance in designing and synthesizing economically feasible high-performance electrocatalysts. Since cation substitution allows to finely tailor the atomic arrangement, structural distortion, and electrocatalytic performance of transition metal oxides, a relationship between local structural order and electrocatalytic activity in crystalline manganese oxide can be systematically investigated by in situ X-ray absorption, electron paramagnetic resonance, and electrochemical impedance spectroscopic analyses for unsubstituted and Fe-substituted α-Mn1-xFexO2 during the oxygen evolution reaction (OER). The substitution of Mn with Fe is quite effective in improving the OER activity of α-MnO2 to reach a small overpotential of 0.40 V at 10 mA cm-2. Under OER conditions, the Fe substitution improves the local structural order of MnO6 octahedra in the α-MnO2 lattice, thus leading to a significant enhancement of charge transport kinetics. Since the Fe substitution induces only a limited alteration of the electronic structure and the substituted Fe ion itself shows only a negligible contribution to the OER activity, the excellent OER functionality of Fe-substituted α-Mn1-xFexO2 is attributable mainly to the improvement of local structural ordering upon Fe substitution. The present study underscores the crucial role of local structural order in optimizing the electrocatalytic functionality of crystalline transition metal oxides.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 12565-12573 |
Number of pages | 9 |
Journal | Journal of Materials Chemistry A |
Volume | 6 |
Issue number | 26 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 2018 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:This work was supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) grant funded by the Korea government (MSIP) (No. NRF-2017R1A5A1015365), and by the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) grant funded by the Korea government (MSIT) (No. NRF-2017R1A2A1A17069463). The experiments at PAL were supported in part by MOST and POSTECH.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2018 The Royal Society of Chemistry.
All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes
- Chemistry(all)
- Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment
- Materials Science(all)