Sulfur Modified Cobalt-Copper Hydroxide Nanorods Array for Enhanced Oxygen Evolution Reaction
Qianqian Song a b, Marta Costa Figueiredo a, Junqi Li b
a Department of Chemical Engineering and Chemistry, Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e), P.O. Box 513, Eindhoven, 5600 MB, Netherlands
b Shaanxi university of science and technology, Weiyang District, Xi'an, Xi'an, Shaanxi, China, Xi'an, China
Proceedings of International Conference on Electrocatalysis for Energy Applications and Sustainable Chemicals (EcoCat)
Online, Spain, 2020 November 23rd - 25th
Organizers: Ward van der Stam, Marta Costa Figueiredo, Sixto Gimenez Julia, Núria López and Bastian Mei
Poster, Qianqian Song, 051
Publication date: 6th November 2020
ePoster: 

Electrochemical water splitting is a promising and sustainable approach to produce hydrogen fuel. It includes two half reaction: hydrogen evolution on the cathode and oxygen evolution on the anode. Compared with HER, the OER process is more sluggish because it’s a complex multi-step electron-protons transfer to break O-H bonds and from O=O bonds.[1] The first-row transition metal materials, especially bimetallic transition metal oxide or hydroxide, have been considered as an alternative for catalyzing water oxidation in alkaline solution. Bimetals can combine the advantages of two single metals and show synergistic effects on the catalysis.[2]

In this work we report sulfur modified cobalt-copper hydroxide nanorods, we optimized geometric and electronic structure and improved activities towards OER. For the geometric structure optimization hollow structures with nano array surface configuration were prepared. The hollow nanostructures were built by removing the template material and aiming to expose more internal area. For the outside, the nano array configuration on the surface increases the surface area. For the improvement of the electronic structure, sulfur was introduced to modify the coordination environment of transition metal. This is because the anion exchange (the S2- ions partly replaced the OH anions in the hydroxide) could make the structure more flexible because of the lower electronegativity of sulfur.[3] The result shows that the increase in OER activity can be attributed to: (1) The hollow nanoarray structure effectively improve the electrochemical active area and charge transfer; (2) Sulfur-doping on the surface can effectively regulate the oxidation state of copper and improve the reaction kinetics of the oxygen evolution process.

This work was supported by China Scholarship Council; Inorganic Materials & Catalysis, Eindhoven University of Technology; and Shaanxi Key Laboratory of Green Preparation and Functionalization for Inorganic Materials, Shaanxi University of Science and Technology.

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