ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Chem.
Sec. Electrochemistry
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fchem.2025.1656451
This article is part of the Research TopicApplications and Advances of Carbon-based Materials in ElectrochemistryView all 3 articles
One-Pot Hydrothermal Oxidation Enables In Situ Construction of CDs/Ni(OH)2 Composite for Electrocatalytic Oxygen Evolution
Provisionally accepted
- China University of Petroleum, Qingdao, China
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Electrochemical water splitting is a promising solution to energy challenges, yet the kinetically sluggish oxygen evolution reaction (OER) at the anode demands highly active and cost-effective catalysts. Herein, we develop a facile one-pot hydrothermal oxidation strategy to simultaneously achieve the oxidative cleavage of petroleum coke into nanoscale carbon dots (HO-CDs) and the in situ growth of nickel hydroxide (Ni(OH)2) on nickel foam (NF), yielding an HO-CDs-Ni(OH)2/NF composite catalyst. The in situ-formed HO-CDs efficiently modulate Ni(OH)2 crystallization by suppressing oriented growth to create a nanostructure with abundant active sites. This synergistic interplay significantly enhances both active site accessibility and charge transfer efficiency, leading to exceptional OER performance. The optimized HO-CDs-Ni(OH)2/NF catalyst delivers an overpotential of 353 mV at a current density of 50 mA cm-2 with a small Tafel slope of 81.2 mV dec-1. Furthermore, it demonstrates excellent stability, retaining 92% of its initial current density after a 24-hour chronoamperometric test. This work presents a straightforward approach for designing high-performance transition metal-based electrocatalysts through carbon dot-mediated crystal engineering via in situ incorporation.
Keywords: nickel hydroxide, carbon dots, In situ growth, Oxygen Evolution reaction, Electrocatalysis
Received: 30 Jun 2025; Accepted: 21 Aug 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Wang, Xu, Han, Yan, Zhu, Wang, Wang and Zhao. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Qingshan Zhao, China University of Petroleum, Qingdao, China
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