Enhanced catalytic activity of novel sea urchin-like spinel for advanced electrochemical energy conversion

[Display omitted] •Novel sea urchin-like NiCo2O4 was prepared by precise morphological engineering.•The sea urchin-like NiCo2O4 reduces the bandgap, introduces more oxygen vacancies, and enhances the specific surface area.•Under the ORR model, NCO-HT100 exhibits an impressive output performance of 920 mW cm−2.•Under the OER model, NCO-HT100 achieves a current density of 134.29 mA cm−2. Through precise morphological engineering, novel sea urchin-like spinel NiCo2O4 (NCO) was successfully synthesized and thoroughly investigated as a bifunctional electrode for both oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) and oxygen evolution reaction (OER). In contrast to traditional NCO, the distinctive scattered nanofiber microstructure of NCO prepared via hydrothermal at 100 ℃ (HT100) increases the specific surface area, introduces more oxygen vacancies, reduces the bandgap, enhances the diffusion, adsorption, and dissociation processes of oxygen molecules, thereby promoting rapid electron transfer and augmenting the number of active sites for both ORR and OER. At 800 °C, under the ORR model, NCO-HT100 exhibits an impressive output performance of 920 mW cm−2, surpassing traditional NCO by 47.8 %. Simultaneously, under the OER model, NCO-HT100 achieves a current density of 134.29 mA cm−2. Compared with conventional NCO, sea urchin-like NCO-HT100 displays lower Tafel slopes and overpotentials in alkaline solution at room temperature, indicating superior OER performance. These findings highlight that the sea urchin-like NCO-HT100 stands out as an advanced bifunctional electrode material for both ORR and OER. The insights gained from this research provide pivotal guidance for the future development of multifunctional electrode materials in energy conversion device applications.