External Fields Assisted Highly Efficient Oxygen Evolution Reaction of Confined 1T‐VSe2 Ferromagnetic Nanoparticles

Abstract

AbstractAs a clean and effective approach, the introduction of external magnetic fields to improve the performance of catalysts has attracted extensive attention. Owing to its room‐temperature ferromagnetism, chemical stability, and earth abundance, VSe2 is expected to be a promising and cost‐effective ferromagnetic electrocatalyst for the accomplishment of high‐efficient spin‐related OER kinetics. In this work, a facile pulsed laser deposition (PLD) method combined with rapid thermal annealing (RTA) treatment is used to successfully confine monodispersed 1T‐VSe2 nanoparticles in amorphous carbon matrix. As expected, with external magnetic fields of 800 mT stimulation, the confined 1T‐VSe2 nanoparticles exhibit highly efficient oxygen evolution reaction (OER) catalytic activity with an overpotential of 228 mV for 10 mA cm−2 and remarkable durability without deactivation after >100 h OER operation. The experimental results together with theoretical calculations illustrate that magnetic fields can facilitate the surface charge transfer dynamics of 1T‐VSe2, and modify the adsorption‐free energy of *OOH, thus finally improving the intrinsic activity of the catalysts. This work realizes the application of ferromagnetic VSe2 electrocatalyst in highly efficient spin‐dependent OER kinetics, which is expected to promote the application of transition metal chalcogenides (TMCs) in external magnetic field‐assisted electrocatalysis.