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The Flexibility of an Amorphous Cobalt Hydroxide Nanomaterial Promotes the Electrocatalysis of Oxygen Evolution Reaction
Author(s) -
Liu Juzhe,
Nai Jianwei,
You Tingting,
An Pengfei,
Zhang Jing,
Ma Guanshui,
Niu Xiaogang,
Liang Chaoying,
Yang Shihe,
Guo Lin
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
small
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.785
H-Index - 236
eISSN - 1613-6829
pISSN - 1613-6810
DOI - 10.1002/smll.201703514
Subject(s) - overpotential , electrocatalyst , catalysis , oxygen evolution , cobalt , amorphous solid , cobalt hydroxide , materials science , nanomaterials , electrochemistry , chemical engineering , nanotechnology , chemistry , inorganic chemistry , crystallography , organic chemistry , electrode , engineering
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.