1. Revealing the effect of phosphorus doping on Co@carbon in boosting oxygen evolution catalytic activity.
- Author
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Wang, Liang, Xu, Jiaojiao, Wang, Zeming, Wang, Zhe, Liu, Yijian, Sun, Weiwei, Lai, Jiawei, Vajtai, Robert, Ajayan, Pulickel M., Tour, James M., and Wang, Yong
- Subjects
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HYDROGEN evolution reactions , *ELECTROCATALYSTS , *CATALYTIC activity , *OXYGEN evolution reactions , *DENSITY functional theory , *ENERGY conversion , *NANOPARTICLES - Abstract
Oxygen evolution reaction (OER) is a vital process in numerous energy conversion systems, and therefore, considerable attention has been devoted to the fabrication of nonnoble and highly efficient electrode materials for OER. Herein, Co nanoparticles embedded in the N, P-codoped porous carbon (Co/P-N-C) are synthesized using a novel Co-based metal-organic polymer (Co-MOP) as the precursor through carbonization and a subsequent phosphorization treatment process. When the phosphorization treatment is carried out at pH 3, Co/P-N-C exhibits a very low overpotential of 300 mV for a current density of 10 mA cm−2 with a small Tafel slope of 61 mV dec−1 and excellent stability over 20000 s. The electrocatalytic performance of Co/P-N-C was even better than that of the commercial RuO 2 material. Density functional theory calculations were used to simulate the electrocatalytic process and to verify the experimental findings, which showed that the superior OER performance was attributed to the active sites of doped P and Co nanoparticles. This viable strategy of using a novel Co-MOP to create a novel phosphorized Co/P-N-C microporous carbon-based material may expand the opportunities for the exploration of high-performance and robust nonnoble metal electrocatalysts for energy-conversion reactions. Co atoms on N, P co-doped porous carbon via phosphorization on Co-MOP exhibit excellent OER performance due to the synergistic effects of P and Co. Image 1 • A phosphorization strategy to prepare a porous MOP-derived Co-P-N-C nanosphere. • The as-obtained yolk-shell Co-P-N-C nanosphere possesses the high electrocatalytic activity for OER. • Reveal the P and Co synergistic mechanism for forming more active sites of Co-P-N-C. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2020
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