In-situ developed carbon spheres function as promising support for enhanced activity of cobalt oxide in oxygen...

Highly active, stable electrocatalyst for oxygen evolution reaction (OER) is sincerely required for the practical application of water splitting to get rid from the sluggish reaction kinetics and the stability issue. Here, Co₃O₄ is studied as OER catalyst and to improve the electrocatalytic activity, carbon is chosen as the conducting support. A simple and cost-effective synthetic route is developed for the synthesis of Co₃O₄ on carbon support following hydrothermal route using various hydrolyzing agents. The heterostructure 'Co₃O₄/C' perform well in OER as a non-precious metal catalyst. The best Co₃O₄/C electrocatalyst can generate 10 and 30 mA/cm² current densities upon application of 1.623 V and 1.678 V vs. RHE whereas, bare Co₃O₄ can generate current density of 10 and 30 mA/cm² upon application of 1.677 and 1.754 V vs. RHE. Carbon in the heterostructure helps to improve the conductivity and at the same time enhances the charge transfer ability which further leads to increase current density and stability to the catalyst. Co₃O₄/C can generate unaltered current density up to 1000 cycles.