Extraction of nickel from NiFe-LDH into Ni2P@NiFe hydroxide as a bifunctional electrocatalyst for efficient overall water splitting.

The development of highly efficient, low-cost and stable electrocatalysts for overall water splitting is highly desirable for the storage of intermittent solar energy and wind energy sources. Herein, we show for the first time that nickel can be extracted from NiFe-layered double hydroxide (NiFe-LDH) to generate an Ni2P@FePO x heterostructure. The Ni2P@FePO x heterostructure was converted to an Ni2P@NiFe hydroxide heterostructure (P-NiFe) during water splitting, which displays high electrocatalytic performance for both the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) and oxygen evolution reaction (OER) in 1.0 M KOH solution, with an overpotential of 75 mV at 10 mA cm-2 for HER, and overpotentials of 205, 230 and 430 mV at 10, 100 and 1000 mA cm-2 for OER, respectively. Moreover, it could afford a stable current density of 10 mA cm-2 for overall water splitting at 1.51 V in 1.0 M KOH with long-term durability (100 h). This cell voltage is among the best reported values for bifunctional electrocatalysts. The results of theoretical calculations demonstrate that P-NiFe displays optimized adsorption energies for both HER and OER intermediates at the nickel active sites, thus dramatically enhancing its electrocatalytic activity.

3,4-Phenylenedioxythiophene (PheDOT) Based Hole-Transporting Materials for Perovskite Solar Cells.

Two new electron-rich molecules based on 3,4-phenylenedioxythiophene (PheDOT) were synthesized and successfully adopted as hole-transporting materials (HTMs) in perovskite solar cells (PSCs). X-ray diffraction, absorption spectra, photoluminescence spectra, electrochemical properties, thermal stabilities, hole mobilities, conductivities, and photovoltaic parameters of PSCs based on these two HTMs were compared with each other. By introducing methoxy substituents into the main skeleton, the energy levels of PheDOT-core HTM were tuned to match with the perovskite, and its hole mobility was also improved (1.33×10(-4)  cm(2) V(-1) s(-1) , being higher than that of spiro-OMeTAD, 2.34×10(-5)  cm(2) V(-1) s(-1)). The PSC based on MeO-PheDOT as HTM exhibits a short-circuit current density (Jsc) of 18.31 mA cm(-2) , an open-circuit potential (Voc ) of 0.914 V, and a fill factor (FF) of 0.636, yielding an encouraging power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 10.64 % under AM 1.5G illumination. These results give some insight into how the molecular structures of HTMs affect their performances and pave the way for developing high-efficiency and low-cost HTMs for PSCs.