Issue 20, 2020

Construction of tetrahedral CoO4 vacancies for activating the high oxygen evolution activity of Co3−xO4−δ porous nanosheet arrays

Abstract

This study presents low-crystalline and non-stoichiometric cobalt oxide (Co3−xO4−δ) porous nanosheet arrays (PNAs) grown on carbon fiber cloth (CFC) (Co3−xO4−δ PNAs/CFC) by a facile in situ anodic oxidation strategy. We firstly verified that the above prepared low crystalline cobalt oxide contained tetrahedral CoO4 vacancies, resulting in the creation of O vacancies at adjacent octahedral CoO6 sites, allowing the generation of tetragonal–pyramidal CoO5 sites which were regarded as active sites and being accessible for the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) with different reaction mechanisms compared to that of traditional CoO6 sites in high-crystalline and stoichiometric Co3O4, thus endowing Co3−xO4−δ PNAs/CFC with significantly improved OER activity and superior stability compared to their crystalline counterparts (Co3O4 PNAs/CFC), as illustrated by experiments and density functional theory (DFT) calculations. This study will open up a new approach for the synthesis of defect-rich materials and provide new insight into the structure–property relationship of OER catalysts.

Graphical abstract: Construction of tetrahedral CoO4 vacancies for activating the high oxygen evolution activity of Co3−xO4−δ porous nanosheet arrays

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
27 Jan 2020
Accepted
22 Apr 2020
First published
23 Apr 2020

Nanoscale, 2020,12, 11079-11087

Construction of tetrahedral CoO4 vacancies for activating the high oxygen evolution activity of Co3−xO4−δ porous nanosheet arrays

S. Ye, Y. Zhang, W. Xiong, T. Xu, P. Liao, P. Zhang, X. Ren, C. He, L. Zheng, X. Ouyang, Q. Zhang and J. Liu, Nanoscale, 2020, 12, 11079 DOI: 10.1039/D0NR00744G

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