Noble Metal‐Free Nanocatalysts with Vacancies for Electrochemical Water Splitting

Abstract

The fast development of nanoscience and nanotechnology has significantly advanced the fabrication of nanocatalysts and the in-depth study of the structural-activity characteristics of materials at the atomic level. Vacancies, as typical atomic defects or imperfections that widely exist in solid materials, are demonstrated to effectively modulate the physicochemical, electronic, and catalytic properties of nanomaterials, which is a key concept and hot research topic in nanochemistry and nanocatalysis. The recent experimental and theoretical progresses achieved in the preparation and application of vacancy-rich nanocatalysts for electrochemical water splitting are explored. Engineering of vacancies has shown to open up a new avenue beyond the traditional morphology, size, and composition modifications for the development of nonprecious electrocatalysts toward efficient energy conversion. First, an introduction followed by discussions of different types of vacancies, the approaches to create vacancies, and the advanced techniques widely used to characterize these vacancies are presented. Importantly, the correlations between the vacancies and activities of the vacancy-rich electrocatalysts via tuning the electronic states, active sites, and kinetic energy barriers are reviewed. Finally, perspectives on the existing challenges along with some opportunities for the further development of vacancy-rich noble metal-free electrocatalysts with high performance are discussed.

CoP/N‐Doped Carbon Nanowire Derived from Co‐Based Coordination Polymer as Efficient Electrocatalyst toward Oxygen Evolution Reaction

“…Splitting water into H 2 and O 2 is an attractive hydrogen production technology. The methods include electrochemical, photocatalytic, and photoelectrocatalytic water splitting. Compared with photocatalytic and photoelectrocatalytic water splitting, electrocatalytic water splitting can efficiently achieve continuous production of H 2 and O 2 .…”

Design of Noble Metal Electrocatalysts on an Atomic Level

“…Atomic‐scale controllable synthesis is an emerging field and numerous representative studies have appeared in recent years. Non‐noble metal catalysts for electrochemical reactions have been summarized in previous review article ,,. This review will specially focus on the synthesis and application of atomic‐level noble metals in electrocatalysis.…”

“…Recent decades have developed a wealth of non-precious metals even non-metallic catalysts to drive various electrochemical reactions. [11][12][13][14][15] It is undeniable that these catalysts can lower the cost to some extent, however, their catalytic property still lag far behind relative to noble metal catalysts. In particular, their activity often suffers from severe attenuation after longterm durability test.…”

“…Non-noble metal catalysts for electrochemical reactions have been summarized in previous review article. [11,13,15] This review will specially focus on the synthesis and application of atomiclevel noble metals in electrocatalysis. First, we will introduce latest advances in regard to atomic-level controllable noble metal materials.…”

Simultaneous Modulation of Composition and Oxygen Vacancies on Hierarchical ZnCo2O4/Co3O4/NC‐CNT Mesoporous Dodecahedron for Enhanced Oxygen Evolution Reaction

“…[16,[25][26][27][28] To date, modulating vacanciesh as also become an ew avenue to enhancet he OER performance of Co 3 O 4 -based electrocatalysts. [2,13,[29][30][31][32][33] Among those strategies, elemental doping has generally been provent om odulate the oxygen vacancies, but homogeneous dopingi sh ard to achieve, mainly because of the typical postsynthetic doping strategy. The OER performance over oxidesi sr elated to the free energy difference of oxygen and hydroxyl adsorption, which is very sensitive to the surface structure and chemical composition of the electrocatalysts.…”