Mesoporous cobalt ferrite phosphides/reduced graphene oxide as highly effective electrocatalyst for overall water splitting

Yarong Huang; Fenyang Tian; Yequn Liu; Menggang Li; Shichong Xu; Yongsheng Yu; Jiaming Li; Weiwei Yang; Haibo Li

doi:10.1016/j.jcis.2021.07.117

Mesoporous cobalt ferrite phosphides/reduced graphene oxide as highly effective electrocatalyst for overall water splitting

J Colloid Interface Sci. 2022 Jan:605:667-673. doi: 10.1016/j.jcis.2021.07.117. Epub 2021 Jul 26.

Authors

Yarong Huang¹, Fenyang Tian², Yequn Liu³, Menggang Li², Shichong Xu⁴, Yongsheng Yu⁵, Jiaming Li⁶, Weiwei Yang⁷, Haibo Li⁴

Affiliations

¹ Key Laboratory of Functional Materials Physics and Chemistry of the Ministry of Education, Jilin Normal University, Changchun 130103, China; MIIT Key Laboratory of Critical Materials Technology for New Energy Conversion and Storage, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin, Heilongjiang 150001, China.
² MIIT Key Laboratory of Critical Materials Technology for New Energy Conversion and Storage, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin, Heilongjiang 150001, China.
³ Institutional Center for Shared Technologies and Facilities of Institute of Coal Chemistry, CAS, State Key Laboratory of Coal Conversion, Taiyuan 030001, China.
⁴ Key Laboratory of Functional Materials Physics and Chemistry of the Ministry of Education, Jilin Normal University, Changchun 130103, China.
⁵ Key Laboratory of Functional Materials Physics and Chemistry of the Ministry of Education, Jilin Normal University, Changchun 130103, China. Electronic address: yuyongsheng@jlnu.edu.cn.
⁶ School of Physics, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin 150001, China. Electronic address: 17b911043@stu.hit.edu.cn.
⁷ MIIT Key Laboratory of Critical Materials Technology for New Energy Conversion and Storage, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin, Heilongjiang 150001, China. Electronic address: yangww@hit.edu.cn.

PMID: 34364006
DOI: 10.1016/j.jcis.2021.07.117

Abstract

Although the electrochemical production of hydrogen has been considered as a promising strategy to obtain the sustainable resources, the sluggish kinetics of anodic oxygen evolution reaction (OER) hindered the sustainable energy development. Herein, we design mesoporous cobalt ferrite phosphides hybridized on reduced graphene oxide (rGO) as a highly efficient bifunctional catalyst through a simple nanocasting method. The hybrid catalyst possesses the abundant interface, which provides the large active sites, as well as the hybrid rGO accelerates the electron exchange and ion diffusion. Moreover, the mesoporous structure not only prevents the aggregation of actives sites, but also benefits for the rapid escape of bubbles during catalytical process, which can significantly improve the catalytic performance. Consequently, the resulting mCo_0.5Fe_0.5P/rGO shows superior catalytic performance with a low overpotential of 250 mV at a current density of 10 mA cm^-2 for OER and outstanding long-term stability. More importantly, an electrolyzer with mCo_0.5Fe_0.5P/rGO as both anode and cathode catalysts shows a low voltage of 1.66 V to afford a current density of 10 mA cm^-2. This work offers a new route for designing the highly efficient OER and overall water splitting electrocatalysts.

Keywords: CoFeP; Mesoporous; Reduced graphene oxide; Water splitting.