Precious-metal-free Co-Fe-O/rGO synergetic electrocatalysts for oxygen evolution reaction by a facile hydrothermal route

Abstract

Abundant iron group metal oxides and their composites possess great potential in the application of electrochemical energy storage and conversion. In this work, we obtained Co-Fe-O composites/reduced graphene oxides (CFO/rGO) hybrid structures, engineered their compositions, phase, and structures by a facile hydrothermal route, and studied their composition-dependent activity for electrochemical oxygen evolution reaction (OER) in alkaline media. It is found that synergetic effects bring a clear decrease in overpotential and Tafel slope for CFO/rGO catalysts in comparison with monometallic composition/rGO catalysts. OER charge-transfer resistance is significantly reduced after Fe addition, indicating that the reaction barriers of CFO/rGO are reduced. The optimal CFO/rGO with Co-Fe ratio of 2:1 was identified. Our results on the synergetic effects of CFO/rGO enrich the understanding of iron-group composites for electrocatalytic applications.

Keywords: composites; electrocatalysis; oxygen evolution reaction; spinel; synergetic effect.