Dispersed FeOx nanoparticles decorated with Co2SiO4 hollow spheres for enhanced oxygen evolution reaction

Yang Mu; Yifu Zhang; Xiaoyu Pei; Xueying Dong; Zongkui Kou; Miao Cui; Changgong Meng

doi:10.1016/j.jcis.2021.12.099

Dispersed FeO_x nanoparticles decorated with Co₂SiO₄ hollow spheres for enhanced oxygen evolution reaction

J Colloid Interface Sci. 2022 Apr:611:235-245. doi: 10.1016/j.jcis.2021.12.099. Epub 2021 Dec 18.

Authors

Yang Mu¹, Yifu Zhang², Xiaoyu Pei¹, Xueying Dong¹, Zongkui Kou³, Miao Cui¹, Changgong Meng¹

Affiliations

¹ State Key Laboratory of Fine Chemicals, School of Chemical Engineering, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian 116024, China.
² State Key Laboratory of Fine Chemicals, School of Chemical Engineering, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian 116024, China. Electronic address: yfzhang@dlut.edu.cn.
³ State Key Laboratory of Advanced Technology for Materials Synthesis and Processing, Wuhan University of Technology, Wuhan 430070, China.

PMID: 34953456
DOI: 10.1016/j.jcis.2021.12.099

Abstract

Oxygen evolution reaction (OER) has drawn ever-increasing attention because of its essential role in various renewable-energy technologies. In spite of tremendous research efforts, developing high-performance OER catalysts at low cost remains a great challenge. Inspired by two earth-abundant elements Fe and Si, herein, we report a Fe-Co₂SiO₄ composite consisting of well dispersed iron oxide (FeO_x) decorated Co₂SiO₄ hollow nanospheres as an economical and promising OER catalyst. Although Co₂SiO₄ or FeO_x alone has little OER activity, their composite exhibits satisfied performance, that is highly related to geometric effect and bimetal component electronic interactions. The Fe-Co₂SiO₄ composite exhibits comparable catalytic activity to most of transition mental oxide/hydroxide relevant composites at 10 mA cm^-2. It is even 1.6 times higher than commercial RuO₂ electrocatalyst at high current density 100 mA cm^-2 in alkaline solution. In this work, surface decoration of transition metal silicate provides a new horizon to design high-performance and economical OER catalysts.

Keywords: Co(2)SiO(4) hollow sphere; Electronic metal-support interaction; Geometric effect; Oxygen evolution reaction; Well-dispersed FeO(x).