TY - JOUR
T1 - Space-Confined Earth-Abundant Bifunctional Electrocatalyst for High-Efficiency Water Splitting
AU - Tang, Yanqun
AU - Fang, Xiaoyu
AU - Zhang, Xin
AU - Fernandes, Gina
AU - Yan, Yong
AU - Yan, Dongpeng
AU - Xiang, Xu
AU - He, Jing
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2017 American Chemical Society.
PY - 2017/10/25
Y1 - 2017/10/25
N2 - Hydrogen generation from water splitting could be an alternative way to meet increasing energy demands while also balancing the impact of energy being supplied by fossil-based fuels. The efficacy of water splitting strongly depends on the performance of electrocatalysts. Herein, we report a unique space-confined earth-abundant electrocatalyst having the bifunctionality of simultaneous hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) and oxygen evolution reaction (OER), leading to high-efficiency water splitting. Outperforming Pt/C or RuO2 catalysts, this mesoscopic, space-confined, bifunctional configuration is constructed from a monolithic zeolitic imidazolate framework@layered double hydroxide (ZIF@LDH) precursor on Ni foam. Such a confinement leads to a high dispersion of ultrafine Co3O4 nanoparticles within the N-doped carbon matrix by temperature-dependent calcination of the ZIF@LDH. We demonstrate that the OER has an overpotential of 318 mV at a current density of 10 mA cm-2, while that of HER is -106 mV @ -10 mA cm-2. The voltage applied to a two-electrode cell for overall water splitting is 1.59 V to achieve a stable current density of 10 mA cm-2 while using the monolithic catalyst as both the anode and the cathode. It is anticipated that our space-confined method, which focuses on earth-abundant elements with structural integrity, may provide a novel and economically sound strategy for practical energy conversion applications.
AB - Hydrogen generation from water splitting could be an alternative way to meet increasing energy demands while also balancing the impact of energy being supplied by fossil-based fuels. The efficacy of water splitting strongly depends on the performance of electrocatalysts. Herein, we report a unique space-confined earth-abundant electrocatalyst having the bifunctionality of simultaneous hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) and oxygen evolution reaction (OER), leading to high-efficiency water splitting. Outperforming Pt/C or RuO2 catalysts, this mesoscopic, space-confined, bifunctional configuration is constructed from a monolithic zeolitic imidazolate framework@layered double hydroxide (ZIF@LDH) precursor on Ni foam. Such a confinement leads to a high dispersion of ultrafine Co3O4 nanoparticles within the N-doped carbon matrix by temperature-dependent calcination of the ZIF@LDH. We demonstrate that the OER has an overpotential of 318 mV at a current density of 10 mA cm-2, while that of HER is -106 mV @ -10 mA cm-2. The voltage applied to a two-electrode cell for overall water splitting is 1.59 V to achieve a stable current density of 10 mA cm-2 while using the monolithic catalyst as both the anode and the cathode. It is anticipated that our space-confined method, which focuses on earth-abundant elements with structural integrity, may provide a novel and economically sound strategy for practical energy conversion applications.
KW - bifunctional electrocatalyst
KW - layered double hydroxide
KW - monolithic catalyst
KW - space-confined growth
KW - water splitting
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U2 - 10.1021/acsami.7b10338
DO - 10.1021/acsami.7b10338
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85032907735
SN - 1944-8244
VL - 9
SP - 36762
EP - 36771
JO - ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces
JF - ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces
IS - 42
ER -