The development of low‐cost and high‐efficiency catalysts for both hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) and oxygen evolution reaction (OER) in alkaline electrolyte is still challenging. Herein, interfacial Co/CoMoN heterostructures supported on Ni foam (Co/CoMoN/NF) are constructed by thermal ammonolysis of CoMoOx. In 1.0 m KOH solution, Co/CoMoN/NF heterostructures exhibit excellent HER activity with an overpotential of 173 mV at 100 mA cm−2 and a Tafel slope of 68.9 mV dec−1. Density functional theory calculations indicate that the low valence state Co site acts as efficient water‐dissociation promoter, while CoMoN substrate has favorable hydrogen adsorption energy, leading to an enhanced HER activity. The Co/CoMoN/NF heterostructures also achieve high OER activity with an overpotential of 303 mV at 100 mA cm−2 and a Tafel slope of 56 mV dec−1. Using Co/CoMoN/NF heterostructures as the cathode and anode, the alkaline electrolyzer requires a low voltage of 1.56 V to reach the current density of 100 mA cm−2 along with superior long‐term durability. This study provides a new design strategy toward low‐cost and excellent catalysts for water splitting.
The recently emerged single-atom alloy (SAA) catalysts have assembled the merits of the single atom catalysts (SACs) and the alloy catalysts, showing a great potential for driving nitrogen reduction reaction...
requires huge and expensive infrastructures to bear the harsh operating conditions, which further raises the production cost. [5] Thus, the development of energy efficient and environmental-friendly technologies for NH 3 synthesis is urgently important. Electrochemical methods powered by renewable electricity offer economical and environmentally friendly routes to produce NH 3 at room temperature. [6] Recently, electrochemical N 2 reduction reaction (NRR) under ambient conditions has been considered as a clean energy route for NH 3 production. [7] However, current NRR processes are still very inefficient, because of the extremely stable NN triple bond in N 2 (941 kJ mol −1 ), limited solubility of N 2 in the aqueous solution, and competing hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) in the aqueous electrolyte. [8] Thus, the practical application of NRR for NH 3 synthesis still has a long way to go. Recently, electrochemical nitrate (NO 3 − ) reduction reaction (NitRR) under ambient conditions has emerged as a highly promising strategy toward green NH 3 synthesis because the dissociation energy of N = O in NO 3 − (204 kJ mol −1 ) is much lower than that of the NN bond, which achieves much higher reaction rate for NH 3 production. [9] In addition, NO 3 −
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