Sustainable oxygen evolution electrocatalysis in aqueous 1 M H2SO4 with earth abundant nanostructured Co3O4

Abstract

Earth-abundant electrocatalysts for the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) able to work in acidic working conditions are elusive. While many first-row transition metal oxides are competitive in alkaline media, most of them just dissolve or become inactive at high proton concentrations where hydrogen evolution is preferred. Only noble-metal catalysts, such as IrO2, are fast and stable enough in acidic media. Herein, we report the excellent activity and long-term stability of Co3O4-based anodes in 1 M H2SO4 (pH 0.1) when processed in a partially hydrophobic carbon-based protecting matrix. These Co3O4@C composites reliably drive O2 evolution a 10 mA cm–2 current density for >40 h without appearance of performance fatigue, successfully passing benchmarking protocols without incorporating noble metals. Our strategy opens an alternative venue towards fast, energy efficient acid-media water oxidation electrodes.

Doping Shortens the Metal/Metal Distance and Promotes OH Coverage in Non-Noble Acidic Oxygen Evolution Reaction Catalysts

“…We carried out isotope labeled operando differential electrochemical mass spectrometry (DEMS) to further prove the OPM mechanism (Figure S29). We used H 2 18 O and H 2…”

Nanotubular TiOxNy-Supported Ir Single Atoms and Clusters as Thin-Film Electrocatalysts for Oxygen Evolution in Acid Media

“…According to literature comparison, this represents an exceptional performance; however, an exact comparison is rather challenging, since Ir SAC OER catalysts were tested in an alkaline medium and immobilized on chemically very different supports. ,,, Only the study by Yin et al reports on the acidic OER performance of NiCo 2 O 4 nanosheet-immobilized Ir single atoms . Although highly active, the catalyst contained approximately 10.4 μg Ir cm –2 and its high activity cannot be only attributed to Ir SA due to the content of Co, which has been proven to be active under OER conditions . The amount of Ir in all published studies is several times higher than in TiO x N y –Ir developed in this study.…”

PdO@CoSe2 composites: efficient electrocatalysts for water oxidation in alkaline media

“…5(d) and the performance is close to the recently reported nonprecious materials. 67,68 Additionally, the stability of CSPd-2 was investigated aer the durability test using LSV polarization curves before and aer the stability test as shown in Fig. 5(e).…”