Lattice oxygen activation and local electric field enhancement by co-doping Fe and F in CoO nanoneedle arrays for industrial electrocatalytic water oxidation

Pengcheng Ye; Keqing Fang; Haiyan Wang; Yahao Wang; Hao Huang; Chenbin Mo; Jiqiang Ning; Yong Hu

doi:10.1038/s41467-024-45320-0

Lattice oxygen activation and local electric field enhancement by co-doping Fe and F in CoO nanoneedle arrays for industrial electrocatalytic water oxidation

Nat Commun. 2024 Feb 3;15(1):1012. doi: 10.1038/s41467-024-45320-0.

Authors

Pengcheng Ye^#¹, Keqing Fang^#¹, Haiyan Wang², Yahao Wang¹, Hao Huang³, Chenbin Mo¹, Jiqiang Ning⁴, Yong Hu⁵

Affiliations

¹ Key Laboratory of the Ministry of Education for Advanced Catalysis Materials, Department of Chemistry, Zhejiang Normal University, Jinhua, 321004, China.
² Key Laboratory of the Ministry of Education for Advanced Catalysis Materials, Department of Chemistry, Zhejiang Normal University, Jinhua, 321004, China. chemwhy@zjnu.edu.cn.
³ Department of Microsystems, University of South-Eastern Norway, Borre, 3184, Norway. huanghao881015@163.com.
⁴ Department of Optical Science and Engineering, Fudan University, Shanghai, 200438, China.
⁵ College of Chemistry and Materials Engineering, Zhejiang A&F University, Hangzhou, 311300, China. yonghu@zafu.edu.cn.

^# Contributed equally.

Abstract

Oxygen evolution reaction (OER) is critical to renewable energy conversion technologies, but the structure-activity relationships and underlying catalytic mechanisms in catalysts are not fully understood. We herein demonstrate a strategy to promote OER with simultaneously achieved lattice oxygen activation and enhanced local electric field by dual doping of cations and anions. Rough arrays of Fe and F co-doped CoO nanoneedles are constructed, and a low overpotential of 277 mV at 500 mA cm^-2 is achieved. The dually doped Fe and F could cooperatively tailor the electronic properties of CoO, leading to improved metal-oxygen covalency and stimulated lattice oxygen activation. Particularly, Fe doping induces a synergetic effect of tip enhancement and proximity effect, which effectively concentrates OH^- ions, optimizes reaction energy barrier and promotes O₂ desorption. This work demonstrates a conceptual strategy to couple lattice oxygen and local electric field for effective electrocatalytic water oxidation.