Atomic-level tungsten doping triggered low overpotential for electrocatalytic water splitting

Mengmeng Jin; Jiewei Li; Jingchang Gao; Weilan Liu; Jing Han; Haimin Liu; Da Zhan; Linfei Lai

doi:10.1016/j.jcis.2020.11.015

Atomic-level tungsten doping triggered low overpotential for electrocatalytic water splitting

J Colloid Interface Sci. 2021 Apr:587:581-589. doi: 10.1016/j.jcis.2020.11.015. Epub 2020 Nov 12.

Authors

Mengmeng Jin¹, Jiewei Li², Jingchang Gao¹, Weilan Liu¹, Jing Han³, Haimin Liu¹, Da Zhan⁴, Linfei Lai⁵

Affiliations

¹ Key Laboratory of Flexible Electronics & Institute of Advanced Materials (IAM), Jiangsu National Synergistic Innovation Center for Advanced Materials (SICAM), Nanjing Tech University, 5 XinMofan Road, Nanjing 210009, China.
² Key Laboratory of Flexible Electronics & Institute of Advanced Materials (IAM), Jiangsu National Synergistic Innovation Center for Advanced Materials (SICAM), Nanjing Tech University, 5 XinMofan Road, Nanjing 210009, China. Electronic address: iamjwli@njtech.edu.cn.
³ School of Public Health, Health Science Center, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an, Shaanxi 710061, China.
⁴ State Key Laboratory of Luminescence and Applications, Changchun Institute of Optics, Fine Mechanics and Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Changchun 130033, China. Electronic address: zhanda@ciomp.ac.cn.
⁵ Key Laboratory of Flexible Electronics & Institute of Advanced Materials (IAM), Jiangsu National Synergistic Innovation Center for Advanced Materials (SICAM), Nanjing Tech University, 5 XinMofan Road, Nanjing 210009, China; CINTRA CNRS/NTU/Thales, UMI 3288, 50 Nanyang Drive, 637553, Singapore. Electronic address: iamlflai@njtech.edu.cn.

PMID: 33234311
DOI: 10.1016/j.jcis.2020.11.015

Abstract

The design of electrocatalysts with lower overpotential is of great significance for water splitting. Herein, cobalt hydroxide carbonate (CCH) has been used as a model to demonstrate the boost of its oxygen evolution reaction (OER) activity by atomic doping of W⁶⁺ (W-CCH). The 5 at % W doping reduced the OER overpotential of CCH by 95.3 mV at 15 mA cm^-2, and increased the current density by 2.8 times at 1.65 V. 5%W-PCCH || 5%W-CCH-based electrolyzer only required a potential of 1.65 V to afford 10 mA cm^-2 for full water splitting. The W⁶⁺ in CCH are active sites for O₂^- adsorption and induced an incesaed electron density near the Fermi level, which facilitates the charge transfer during electrocatalysis. The W⁶⁺ doping has been validated as an efficient booster for transition-metal carbonate hydroxides-based electrocatalysts, which has half or more than half-filled d-bands.

Keywords: Electrochemistry; Heterometal doping; Oxygen evolution reaction; Water splitting.