Field-Free Improvement of Oxygen Evolution Reaction in Magnetic Two-Dimensional Heterostructures

Ziren Xiong; Ce Hu; Xingfang Luo; Wenda Zhou; Zhenzhen Jiang; Yong Yang; Ting Yu; Wen Lei; Cailei Yuan

doi:10.1021/acs.nanolett.1c03981

Field-Free Improvement of Oxygen Evolution Reaction in Magnetic Two-Dimensional Heterostructures

Nano Lett. 2021 Dec 22;21(24):10486-10493. doi: 10.1021/acs.nanolett.1c03981. Epub 2021 Dec 3.

Authors

Ziren Xiong¹, Ce Hu^{1

2}, Xingfang Luo¹, Wenda Zhou¹, Zhenzhen Jiang¹, Yong Yang¹, Ting Yu¹, Wen Lei³, Cailei Yuan¹

Affiliations

¹ Jiangxi Key Laboratory of Nanomaterials and Sensors, School of Physics, Communication and Electronics, Jiangxi Normal University, 99 Ziyang Avenue, Nanchang 330022, Jiangxi, China.
² Analytical and Testing Center, Jiangxi Normal University, 99 Ziyang Avenue, Nanchang 330022, Jiangxi, China.
³ School of Electrical, Electronic, and Computer Engineering, University of Western Australia, 35 Stirling Highway, Crawley 6009, Australia.

PMID: 34859672
DOI: 10.1021/acs.nanolett.1c03981

Abstract

Ferromagnetic (FM) electrocatalysts have been demonstrated to reduce the kinetic barrier of oxygen evolution reaction (OER) by spin-dependent kinetics and thus enhance the efficiency fundamentally. Accordingly, FM two-dimensional (2D) materials with unique physicochemical properties are expected to be promising oxygen-evolution catalysts; however, related research is yet to be reported due to their air-instabilities and low Curie temperatures (T_C). Here, based on the synthesis of 2D air-stable FM Cr₂Te₃ nanosheets with a low T_C around 200 K, room-temperature ferromagnetism is achieved in Cr₂Te₃ by proximity to an antiferromagnetic (AFM) CrOOH, demonstrating the accomplishment of long-ranged FM ordering in Cr₂Te₃ because the magnetic proximity effect stems from paramagnetic (PM)/AFM heterostructure. Therefore, the OER performance can be permanently promoted (without applied magnetic field due to nonvolatile nature of spin) after magnetization. This work demonstrates that a representative PM/AFM 2D heterostructure, Cr₂Te₃/CrOOH, is expected to be a high-efficient magnetic heterostructure catalysts for oxygen-evolution.

Keywords: Field-free; magnetic proximity effect; magnetic two-dimensional heterostructures; oxygen evolution reaction.