Doping Shortens the Metal/Metal Distance and Promotes OH Coverage in Non-Noble Acidic Oxygen Evolution Reaction Catalysts

作者：Ning Wang, Pengfei Ou, Rui Kai Miao, Yuxin Chang, Ziyun Wang, Sung‐Fu Hung, Jehad Abed, Adnan Ozden, Hsuan‐Yu Chen, Heng‐Liang Wu, Jianan Erick Huang, Daojin Zhou, Weiyan Ni, Lizhou Fan, Yushan Yan, Tao Peng, David Sinton, Yongchang Liu, Hongyan Liang, Edward H. Sargent · 发表于：Journal of the American Chemical Society · 年份：2023 · DOI：10.1021/jacs.2c12431 · 被引用次数：305 · 研究领域：Electrocatalysts for Energy Conversion、Advanced battery technologies research、Electrochemical Analysis and Applications

Acidic water electrolysis enables the production of hydrogen for use as a chemical and as a fuel. The acidic environment hinders water electrolysis on non-noble catalysts, a result of the sluggish kinetics associated with the adsorbate evolution mechanism, reliant as it is on four concerted proton-electron transfer steps. Enabling a faster mechanism with non-noble catalysts will help to further advance acidic water electrolysis. Here, we report evidence that doping Ba cations into a Co 3 O 4 framework to form Co 3– x Ba x O 4 promotes the oxide path mechanism and simultaneously improves activity in acidic electrolytes. Co 3– x Ba x O 4 catalysts reported herein exhibit an overpotential of 278 mV at 10 mA/cm 2 in 0.5 M H 2 SO 4 electrolyte and are stable over 110 h of continuous water oxidation operation. We find that the incorporation of Ba cations shortens the Co–Co distance and promotes OH adsorption, findings we link to improved water oxidation in acidic electrolyte.