Dual-doping of ruthenium and nickel into Co3O4 for improving the oxygen evolution activity

Beibei Guo; Ruguang Ma; Zichuang Li; Jun Luo; Minghui Yang; Jiacheng Wang

doi:10.1039/D0QM00079E

Dual-doping of ruthenium and nickel into Co₃O₄ for improving the oxygen evolution activity†

Beibei Guo,^abc Ruguang Ma,

^a Zichuang Li,^a Jun Luo,

^c Minghui Yang^bd and Jiacheng Wang

*^ab

Author affiliations

* Corresponding authors

^a State Key Laboratory of High Performance Ceramics and Superfine Microstructure, Shanghai Institute of Ceramics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 200050, People's Republic of China
E-mail: jiacheng.wang@mail.sic.ac.cn

^b Center of Materials Science and Optoelectronics Engineering, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, People's Republic of China

^c School of Materials Science and Engineering, Shanghai University, Shanghai 200444, People's Republic of China

^d Solid State Functional Materials Research Laboratory, Ningbo Institute of Materials Technology and Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Ningbo 315201, People's Republic of China

Abstract

Spinel oxides Co₃O₄ with mixed valence cations Co²⁺ and Co³⁺ make it possible to improve the catalytic activity by regulating the distribution of cations via additional doping. Controllable synthesis of nanosized Co₃O₄ with excellent catalytic properties and stability towards the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) is critical for conversion and storage of sustainable source-derived electricity. Herein, Ru and Ni co-doped Co₃O₄ nanoparticles (Ru/Ni-Co₃O₄) with abundant active sites and oxygen vacancies were synthesized by a one-step hydrothermal method. Ru atoms doped into the octahedral sites improve the intrinsic activity of spinel oxide Co₃O₄, while the introduction of Ni creates abundant oxygen vacancies, thus exposing more active sites at the surface and accelerating the OER kinetics. The optimized Ru/Ni-Co₃O₄ nanoparticles possess a low overpotential (290 mV at 10 mA cm⁻²) and excellent stability (only 1% activity decay after 10 h), significantly superior to the state-of-the-art IrO₂ and most OER electrocatalysts reported before. This work provides a new strategy to increase the density of the active sites and generate surface oxygen vacancies simultaneously without destroying the crystallinity/microstructure and use of any additional complicated treatments (such as plasma techniques and multi-step pyrolysis).

This article is part of the themed collection: 2020 Materials Chemistry Frontiers HOT articles

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Article information

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1039/D0QM00079E
Article type: Research Article
Submitted: 13 Feb 2020
Accepted: 10 Mar 2020
First published: 11 Mar 2020

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Mater. Chem. Front., 2020,4, 1390-1396

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Dual-doping of ruthenium and nickel into Co₃O₄ for improving the oxygen evolution activity

B. Guo, R. Ma, Z. Li, J. Luo, M. Yang and J. Wang, Mater. Chem. Front., 2020, 4, 1390 DOI: 10.1039/D0QM00079E

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