Issue 12, 2019

Concentrated-acid triggered superfast generation of porous amorphous cobalt oxide toward efficient water oxidation catalysis in alkaline solution

Abstract

Amorphous transition-metal (hydr)oxides have proven to be the most promising oxygen evolution reaction (OER) electrocatalysts. Here, a facile and novel strategy for the generation of porous amorphous cobalt oxide through one-step treatment of the cobalt carbonate hydroxide precursor with concentrated sulfuric acid has been reported. Benefiting from the optimized amorphous structure, the prepared catalyst exhibits an excellent water-oxidation activity in an alkaline electrolyte with the demand of 50 mV less overpotential at 10 mA cm−2 compared to that of highly-crystallized Co3O4. Compared with the 400 °C annealing process for Co3O4, the ultrafast acid treatment process within 10 seconds at room-temperature for achieving such amorphous cobalt oxide demonstrates tremendous convenience. More impressively, after continuous testing for 60 h at an overpotential of 370 mV, it still maintains a porous configuration as well as ∼92% of the original current density. Our findings not only present a high-efficiency OER electrocatalyst, but also provide a methodology with broad applicability toward the systematic study of other non-crystal oxides for green energy applications.

Graphical abstract: Concentrated-acid triggered superfast generation of porous amorphous cobalt oxide toward efficient water oxidation catalysis in alkaline solution

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Communication
Submitted
27 Dec 2018
Accepted
15 Jan 2019
First published
22 Jan 2019

Chem. Commun., 2019,55, 1797-1800

Concentrated-acid triggered superfast generation of porous amorphous cobalt oxide toward efficient water oxidation catalysis in alkaline solution

X. Ji, Y. He and J. Liu, Chem. Commun., 2019, 55, 1797 DOI: 10.1039/C8CC10229E

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