C-modified amorphous NiFe alloy nanoparticle via simple room temperature fermentation for efficient oxygen evolution reaction

Amorphous alloys are promising candidates for oxygen evolution reaction (OER) applications due to their unique structural features, including abundant active sites, tunable chemical composition and high structural flexibility. However, there is a main challenge in the improvement of stability due to the short-range order structure of amorphous alloys. In this work, we synthesized C-modified amorphous NiFe alloy (C-NiFe(BP)) via a novel one-step annealing method with the introduction of glucose at room temperature fermentation. The as-prepared C-NiFe(BP) achieves an ultra-low overpotential of 219.7 mV and a Tafel slope of 43.17 mV·dec⁻¹ at the current density of 10 mA·cm⁻², which surpass the reported amorphous NiFe (<i>a</i>-NiFe) based alloys in OER. X-ray diffraction (XRD) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) analyses reveal that carbon modification widens the spacing between catalyst layers, exposing more active sites and promoting charge transfer between elements, thereby improving OER performance. Moreover, the C-NiFe(BP) exhibits promising stability during durability test for 20 h and cyclic voltammetry test for 1000 cycles. We discussed the influence of fermented glucose and indicated that the room temperature fermentation method can enhance the effect of carbon modification on catalyst activity, which further enhances the performance and stability of C-NiFe(BP) in OER. Combining common fermentation processes in life with scientific research to better enhance the performance of catalysts and improve scientific research methods. This work provides an innovative approach on the synthesis of stable C-modified <i>a</i>-NiFe alloy catalysts and further promotes the development of high-performance OER catalysts.