Heterostructure of ultrafine FeOOH nanodots supported on CoAl-layered double hydroxide nanosheets as highly efficient electrocatalyst for water oxidation

Chuan Gang; Jiayi Chen; Qihao Chen; Yantao Chen

doi:10.1016/j.jcis.2021.05.041

Heterostructure of ultrafine FeOOH nanodots supported on CoAl-layered double hydroxide nanosheets as highly efficient electrocatalyst for water oxidation

J Colloid Interface Sci. 2021 Oct 15:600:594-601. doi: 10.1016/j.jcis.2021.05.041. Epub 2021 May 12.

Authors

Chuan Gang¹, Jiayi Chen¹, Qihao Chen¹, Yantao Chen²

Affiliations

¹ Tianjin Key Lab for Photoelectric Materials and Devices, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Tianjin University of Technology, Tianjin 300384, China.
² Tianjin Key Lab for Photoelectric Materials and Devices, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Tianjin University of Technology, Tianjin 300384, China; Key Laboratory of Advanced Energy Materials Chemistry (Ministry of Education), College of Chemistry, Nankai University, Tianjin 300071, China. Electronic address: chenyantao@tjut.edu.cn.

PMID: 34030012
DOI: 10.1016/j.jcis.2021.05.041

Abstract

The supported and dispersed ultrafine active species for electrocatalytic water oxidation are quite promising for the high intrinsic activity. A novel heterostructure of ultrafine FeOOH nanodots with an average size of 2.3 nm supported on CoAl-LDH nanosheets, is constructed by a facile method under ambient conditions. The as-prepared FeOOH@CoAl-LDH shows a strong interfacial interaction upon the formation of heterostructure, and is demonstrated as a highly efficient and stable electrocatalyst that demands 272 mV to attain 50 mA cm^-2 and exhibits a Tafel slope of 40 mV dec^-1. Moreover, density functional theory calculations manifest the coupling of FeOOH with CoAl-LDH can effectively decrease the energy barrier during the water oxidation process by optimizing the adsorption free energy of intermediates in the reaction pathway. The successful development of FeOOH@CoAl-LDH can shed light on the design of novel electrocatalysts that can fully take advantages of small size, heterostructure and synergistic effect.

Keywords: Electrocatalyst; Heterostructure; Layered double hydroxides; Nanodot; Water oxidation.