Synthesis of CoMoO₄ Nanofibers by Electrospinning as Efficient Electrocatalyst for Overall Water Splitting

To improve the traditional energy production and consumption of resources, the acceleration of the development of a clean and green assembly line is highly important. Hydrogen is considered one of the most ideal options. The method of production of hydrogen through water splitting constitutes the most attractive research. We synthesized CoMoO₄ nanofibers by electrospinning along with post-heat treatment at different temperatures. CoMoO₄ nanofibers show a superior activity for hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) and only demand an overpotential of 80 mV to achieve a current density of 10 mA cm^-2. In particular, the CoMoO₄ catalyst also delivers excellent performances of oxygen evolution reaction (OER) in 1 M KOH, which is a more complicated process that needs extra energy to launch. The CoMoO₄ nanofibers also showed a superior stability in multiple CV cycles and maintained a catalytic activity for up to 80 h through chronopotentiometry tests. This is attributed mainly to a synergistic interaction between the different metallic elements that caused the activity of CoMoO₄ beyond single oxides. This approach proved that bimetallic oxides are promising for energy production.