Co(OH) 2 hollow nanoflowers as highly efficient electrocatalysts for oxygen evolution reaction
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Caob) School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Shaanxi Normal University, Xi’an 710119, China; and Department of Chemistry, Renmin University of China, Beijing 100872, China (Received 29 July 2017; accepted 5 September 2017)
Electrocatalytic water splitting for the production of H2 is increasingly becoming a significant method to mitigate the current energy crisis and environmental pollution. However, oxygen evolution reaction (OER), a slow four-electron progress, is the bottle neck of water splitting. Thus, developing new, low cost, and effective catalysts for OER is a research hotspot in material and energy resource fields. Therefore, the research of nonprecious, metal-based OER catalysts has been popular. In this work, it is validated that 3D hollow Co(OH)2 nanoflowers synthesized by a facile template-based strategy at room temperature are effective electrocatalysts for OER. The catalysts display high activity with a current density of 10 mA/cm2 at an overpotential of 310 mV and a small Tafel slope of 68.9 mV/dec in alkaline condition. It’s noteworthy that this material is stable for over 20 h of chronopotentiometry. This work offers a simple and promising way to prepare efficient and durable electrocatalysts.
I. INTRODUCTION
Everyone is responsible for handling the present and future fuel feed and related environmental issues in the 21st century. Chemists are considered in duty bound and competent to overcome corresponding technological challenges. As is well known, carbon-based and nonrenewable fossil fuels, including coal, crude oil, and natural gas, still dominate the whole world energy supply nowadays. As a result, the huge consumption of limited fossil fuels will cause energy depletion and bring about serious environmental contamination and climate change, which threatens human health, ecological sustainability, and social progress. Thus, we should cut the use of fossil fuels and exploit new energy, which must be abundant, low cost, pollution free and inexhaustible. To satisfy these requirements, sunlight may be the optimal choice. Photosynthesis is widespread in nature. During this process, chlorophyll collects solar energy to convert water and carbon dioxide into organic compounds and release oxygen. In a word, sunlight energy is converted into chemical energy through photosynthesis and the obtained chemical energy is stored for valuable uses. In detail, the chemical reaction starts with the photoreaction Contributing Editor: Yao Zheng Address all correspondence to these authors. a) e-mail: [email protected] b) e-mail: [email protected] c) These authors contributed equally to this work. DOI: 10.1557/jmr.2017.390
converting water into free protons and electrons and liberating oxygen. Inspired by the scenery of fuel generation powered by solar energy, scientists have paid close attention to the research field of artificial photosynthesis. However, artificial photosynthesis is difficult to achieve due to the lack of an effective catalyst. In recent years, artificial photosynthesis has drawn public attention to h
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