Not an electrochemist, but: in your title you write about oxide, in your description you write about nitrate. Please specify what you really want to happen.
When one ignores the nitrate in the description: Al2O3 is a strong passivation, so if you want something to diffuse through there, you may require some doping in order to reach structural changes as it is done be the "beta-phase".
when you try to compare oxides and nitrides, its not only the metal but behavior of oxygen and nitrogen are also influencing the final properties, hence role of metal seperaltly needed to study when you try to dopped one with other or take more than one kind of compound to compare. once you find the intrinsic nature of material with valance states and condition for reaction, you will be able to analyze this effect.
Article Characterization of the interaction between nickel oxide and...
effect of doping of aluminum oxide on electrochemical performance of nickel oxide will give : good structural stability, reversible capacity, long cycling stability and have been also studied nano structured electrode materials for electrochemical supercapacitor applications.