Heterostructured Inter‐Doped Ruthenium–Cobalt Oxide Hollow Nanosheet Arrays for Highly Efficient Overall Water Splitting

Abstract

The development of transition‐metal‐oxides (TMOs)‐based bifunctional catalysts toward efficient overall water splitting through delicate control of composition and structure is a challenging task. Herein, the rational design and controllable fabrication of unique heterostructured inter‐doped ruthenium–cobalt oxide [(Ru–Co)Ox] hollow nanosheet arrays on carbon cloth is reported. Benefiting from the desirable compositional and structural advantages of more exposed active sites, optimized electronic structure, and interfacial synergy effect, the (Ru–Co)Ox nanoarrays exhibited outstanding performance as a bifunctional catalyst. Particularly, the catalyst showed a remarkable hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) activity with an overpotential of 44.1 mV at 10 mA cm−2 and a small Tafel slope of 23.5 mV dec−1, as well as an excellent oxygen evolution reaction (OER) activity with an overpotential of 171.2 mV at 10 mA cm−2. As a result, a very low cell voltage of 1.488 V was needed at 10 mA cm−2 for alkaline overall water splitting.

RuCoOx Nanofoam as a High-Performance Trifunctional Electrocatalyst for Rechargeable Zinc–Air Batteries and Water Splitting

“…Recent studies indicate that the surface of RuO 2 can be reduced to metallic Ru under the HER potential, which serves as the active sites for the HER, 52 while for the RuCoO x catalyst, Co(OH) 2 was detected after HER tests (Figures S16 and S17), 53 which can accelerate the kinetics of water dissociation for enhanced HER performance. 54 Considering the excellent HER and OER performance of RuCoO x , we assembled a two-electrode electrolyzer using RuCoO x as both anode and cathode for actual application (Figure 5d). The RuCoO x electrode needed a low potential of only 1.54 V to drive 10 mA cm −2 , which was lower than the electrode using commercial Pt/C and IrO 2 (Figure 5e,f).…”

Interface engineering and heterometal doping Mo-NiS/Ni(OH)2 for overall water splitting

“…In the past decades, transition-metal based catalysts have been designed to generate the hydrogen and oxygen, such as transition-metal oxides [14,15], borides [16,17], nitrides [18,19], phosphides [20,21] and chalcogenides [22][23][24]. Unfortunately, these obtained single-component catalysts cannot contribute to high performance for both hydrogen and oxygen generation because it is difficult to simultaneously regulate the interaction between hydrogen and oxygen intermediates to effectively realize the overall water-splitting [25].…”

Graphdiyne@NiOx(OH)y heterostructure for efficient overall water splitting

“…But the high cost, scarcity, and low stability under harsh conditions have hindered their practical applications. In the past few years, scientists have made great efforts to synthesize transition metal-based catalysts, such as sulphides, 6,7 oxides, [8][9][10] phosphides, [11][12][13]54,55 and hydroxides, [14][15][16] for efficient water splitting. However, the practical application was limited by their low conductivity, unsatisfactory activity and stability.…”