CoO nanomaterials with diverse morphologies were usually synthesized in liquid phase accompanied by the template or surfactant under harsh conditions, which further restricted their practical application. Herein, we reported an extremely simple and practical solid-state chemical method to synthesize CoO-octahedrons, -plates, and -rods. Among these, the shape control of CoO-octahedrons and CoO-plates involve variation of the amount of reactant, and the formation of CoO-rods with {110} facet can be achieved by replacing the reactant. The formation of the CoO nanomaterials with different morphologies originated from the different microenvironments of reaction and the structure of reactants. The catalytic activity of CoO samples for CO oxidation was evaluated in normal feed gas. The as-prepared CoO-rods exposed {110} facet exhibited superior catalytic activity for CO oxidation, which can be attributed to more oxygen defects on CoO-rods surface. Additionally, CoO-rods exhibited excellent durablility (without pretreatment) in normal feed gas, even in the presence of moisture, comparable or better than that reported in the literature. The practical and environmental friendly solvent-free strategy provided a new promising route for large-scale preparation of (metal) oxide with remarkable CO oxidation performance for practical application.
Simultaneous boosting electrochemical methanol oxidation reaction (MOR) for direct methanol fuel cells and production of hydrogen is meaningful but challenging. Herein, a sea urchin‐shaped cobalt‐embedded N‐doped carbon nanotubes (Co@NCNT) encapsulated CoPt3@Co2P heterojunction (CoPt3@Co2P/Co@NCNT) is fabricated. Theoretical calculations confirm that electrons at the interfaces transfer from CoPt3 to Co2P, where electron hole region on CoPt3 is beneficial to improving the MOR activity, whereas accumulation region on Co2P favors to the optimization of H2O and H* absorption energies for hydrogen evolution reaction (HER). Benefitting from its interfacial electronic reconfiguration, the CoPt3@Co2P/Co@NCNT heterojunction exhibits excellent electrocatalytic performances for MOR and HER, in which the mass activity (2981 mA mgPt−1) for MOR is 14.2 times than that of Pt/C (20%), and the smallest overpotentials only requires 19 mV to deliver a current density of 10 mA cm−2 for HER. Moreover, the electrolyzer employing CoPt3@Co2P/Co@NCNT for anodic MOR and cathodic H2 production only requires a low voltage of 1.43 V at 10 mA cm−2 with impressive long‐life cycling stability, which is obviously better than that of commercial Pt/C//RuO2. This study offers a novel strategy for other organics oxidation reaction coupled with HER catalyzed production of hydrogen.
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