Thermal and light irradiation effects on the electrocatalytic performance of hemoglobin modified Co3O4-g-C3N4 nanomaterials for the oxygen evolution reaction†
‡a
Daily
Rodríguez-Padrón,
‡a
Zeid A.
Alothman,
*b
Manuel
Cano,
*c
Mario J.
Muñoz-Batista,
*d
Sameh M.
Osman
b
and
Rafael
Luque
ab
Abstract
The oxygen evolution reaction (OER) plays a key role in the water splitting process and a high energy conversion efficiency is essential for the definitive advance of hydrogen-based technologies. Unfortunately, the green and sustainable development of electrocatalysts for water oxidation is nowadays a real challenge. Herein, a successful mechanochemical method is proposed for the synthesis of a novel hemoglobin (Hb) modified Co3O4/g-C3N4 composite nanomaterial. The controlled incorporation of cobalt entities as well as Hb functionalization, without affecting the g-C3N4 nanoarchitecture, was evaluated using different physicochemical techniques, such as X-ray diffraction, N2-physisorption, scanning electron microscopy, UV-visible spectroscopy and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. The beneficial effect of the resulting ternary bioconjugate together with the influence of the temperature and light irradiation was investigated by electrochemical analysis. At 60 °C and under light exposition, this electrocatalyst requires an overpotential of 370 mV to deliver a current density of 10 mA·cm−2, showing a Tafel slope of 66 mV·dec−1 and outstanding long-term stability for 600 OER cycles. This work paves a way for the controlled fabrication of multidimensional and multifunctional bio-electrocatalysts.
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