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Grain-Boundary-Rich Pt/Co3O4 Nanosheets for Solar-Driven Overall Water Splitting
Mengyuan Jin1, Xiang Han1, Aitong Yang1
1Wenzhou Key Lab of Advanced Energy Storage and Conversion, Zhejiang Province Key Lab of Leather Engineering, College of Chemistry and Materials Engineering, Wenzhou University, Wenzhou, Zhejiang 325035, China.
Inorganic Chemistry
|December 26, 2024
Summary
Platinum-cobaltic oxide nanosheets (Pt/Co3O4 NSs) demonstrate efficient bifunctional electrocatalysis for water splitting, offering enhanced activity and stability. This breakthrough advances hydrogen energy storage and conversion technologies.
Area of Science:
- Materials Science
- Electrochemistry
- Catalysis
Background:
- Interfacial engineering enhances catalyst activity by optimizing electronic structure and active sites.
- Developing efficient bifunctional electrocatalysts is crucial for water splitting and hydrogen energy applications.
Purpose of the Study:
- To synthesize and characterize platinum-cobaltic oxide nanosheets (Pt/Co3O4 NSs) as a bifunctional electrocatalyst for water splitting.
- To evaluate the electrochemical performance and long-term stability of Pt/Co3O4 NSs.
- To elucidate the mechanism behind the enhanced catalytic activity using density functional theory (DFT) calculations.
Main Methods:
- Synthesis of Pt/Co3O4 NSs with abundant grain boundaries.
- Electrochemical measurements including overpotential for hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) and oxygen evolution reaction (OER).
- Long-term stability testing under continuous operation.
- Density functional theory (DFT) calculations to analyze reaction mechanisms and electronic structure.
Main Results:
- Pt/Co3O4 NSs exhibit low overpotentials of 55 mV (HER) and 201 mV (OER) at 10 mA cm-2 in 1.0 M KOH.
- The catalyst demonstrates excellent long-term stability with negligible degradation after 100 hours of operation at 10 mA cm-2.
- Overall water-splitting performance surpasses commercial Pt/C||RuO2.
- DFT calculations reveal moderate *H adsorption/desorption energy and a low energy barrier for the rate-determining step.
Conclusions:
- Pt/Co3O4 NSs serve as a highly efficient bifunctional electrocatalyst for water splitting.
- Interfacial engineering via Pt/Co3O4 NSs significantly enhances catalytic activity and stability.
- This study provides a novel strategy for designing advanced catalysts for hydrogen energy storage and conversion.
