The Flexibility of an Amorphous Cobalt Hydroxide Nanomaterial Promotes the Electrocatalysis of Oxygen Evolution Reaction. Issue 17 (3rd April 2018)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Liu, Juzhe; Nai, Jianwei; You, Tingting; An, Pengfei; Zhang, Jing; Ma, Guanshui; Niu, Xiaogang; Liang, Chaoying; Yang, Shihe; Guo, Lin
• Is Part Of: Small. Volume 14:Issue 17(2018)
• Page Start: n/a
• Page End: n/a
• Publication Date: 2018-04-03
• Subjects: amorphous materials -- cobalt hydroxide -- flexibility -- oxygen evolution reaction; Nanotechnology -- Periodicals; Nanoparticles -- Periodicals; Microtechnology -- Periodicals; 620.5
• DOI: 10.1002/smll.201703514
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1613-6810

Abstract

Abstract: Structural flexibility can be a desirable trait of an operating catalyst because it adapts itself to a given catalytic process for enhanced activity. Here, amorphous cobalt hydroxide nanocages are demonstrated to be a promising electrocatalyst with an overpotential of 0.28 V at 10 mA cm −2, far outperforming the crystalline counterparts and being in the top rank of the catalysts of their kind, under the condition of electrocatalytic oxygen evolution reaction. From the direct experimental in situ and ex situ results, this enhanced activity is attributed to its high structural flexibility in terms of 1) facile and holistic transformation into catalytic active phase; 2) hosting oxygen vacancies; and 3) structure self‐regulation in a real‐time process. Significantly, based on plausible catalytic mechanism and computational simulation results, it is disclosed how this structural flexibility facilitates the kinetics of oxygen evolution reaction. This work deepens the understanding of the structure–activity relationship of the Co‐based catalysts in electrochemical catalysis, and it inspires more applications that require flexible structures enabled by such amorphous nanomaterials. Abstract : Amorphous cobalt hydroxide is found to be an efficient and superior catalyst for water oxidation when compared to its the crystalline counterparts. High structural flexibility is demonstrated within the amorphous catalyst and how this structural flexibility facilitates the kinetics of the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) is reported. The findings deepen the understanding of the structure–activity relationship of catalysts and impel the development of amorphous materials in catalysis.