TY - JOUR A1 - Pu, Y. A1 - Lawrence, M. J. A1 - Celorrio, V. A1 - Wang, Q. A1 - Gu, M. A1 - Sun, Z. A1 - Agudo Jácome, Leonardo A1 - Russell, A. E. A1 - Huang, L. A1 - Rodriguez, P. T1 - Nickel confined in 2D earth-abundant oxide layers for highly efficient and durable oxygen evolution catalysts N2 - Low cost, high-efficiency catalysts towards water splitting are urgently required to fulfil the increasing demand for energy. In this work, low-loading (<20 wt%) Ni-confined in layered metal oxide anode catalysts (birnessite and lepidocrocite titanate) have been synthesized by facile ion exchange methodology and subjected to systematic electrochemical studies. It was found that Ni-intercalated on K-rich birnessite (Ni-KMO) presents an onset overpotential (ηonset) as low as 100 mV and overpotential at 10 mA cm−2 (η10) of 206 mV in pH = 14 electrolyte. By combining electrochemical methods and X-ray absorption and emission spectroscopies (XAS and XES), we demonstrate Ni sites are the active sites for OER catalysis and that the Mn3+ sites facilitate Ni intercalation during the ion-exchange process, but display no observable contribution towards OER activity. The effect of the pH and the nature of the supporting electrolyte on the electrochemical performance was also evaluated. KW - Confined catalyst KW - Low-loading KW - Layered manganese oxide KW - Oxygen evolution reaction KW - Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) PY - 2020 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:b43-515027 SN - 2050-7496 SN - 2050-7488 VL - 8 IS - 26 SP - 13340 EP - 13350 PB - Royal Society of Chemistry CY - London AN - OPUS4-51502 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER -