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Research Article

Janus heterostructure of cobalt and iron oxide as dual-functional electrocatalysts for overall water splitting

Xiaojie Li1,2,§, Huike Zhang1,§, Xuan Li1, Qi Hu1, Chen Deng1,2, Xingxing Jiang1,2, Hengpan Yang1, Chuanxin He1( )
College of Chemistry and Environmental Engineering, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen 518060, China
Institute of Microscale Optoelectronics, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen 518060, China

§ Xiaojie Li and Huike Zhang contributed equally to this work.

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Graphical Abstract

Self-supported Janus heterostructure of cobalt and iron oxide has been successfully fabricated, which can sequentially provide a large quantity of both high-quality hydrogen and oxygen evolution reaction active sites attached to the Janus interface.

Abstract

In electrocatalytic water splitting, low-cost dual-functional catalysts can not only reduce costs but also avoid cross-contamination of cathode and anode. However, the orderly aggregation of active sites for hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) and oxygen evolution reaction (OER) into a specific catalyst is very challenging. In this study, a Co/Fe3O4 Janus heterojunction supported on carbon fiber paper (J-CoFe-CFP) is designed and successfully synthesized. Generally, Co-Fe oxides have preferable OER activity but weak HER activity. However, in J-CoFe-CFP, due to the intense and special electronic interaction of different substances (Co and Fe3O4) in the Janus heterogeneous interface, a huge number of tidy high-quality HER and OER active sites are uniformly distributed on the interface simultaneously, which endows the catalyst with both excellent HER and OER performance. In HER, the overpotential @10 mA·cm−2 (ηHER) is only 53.9 mV, and the Tafel slope is 43.7 mV·dec−1. In OER, the η is 272 mV, and the Tafel slope is 50.2 mV·dec−1, much lower than those of RuO2/CFP. In the J-CoFe-CFP||J-CoFe-CFP two-electrode system, the required voltage is only 1.26 V at the beginning and 1.56 V@10 mA·cm−2, much lower than those of RuO2/CFP||20% Pt/C/CFP. This work provides a Janus heterojunction pathway for bifunctional water electrolysis catalysts.

Keywords

Janusbifunctionalelectrocatalyticwater splittingCoFe

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Nano Research
Volume 16 Issue 2,
February 2023
Pages 2245-2251
DOI: 10.1007/s12274-022-5024-9
Cite this article:
Li X, Zhang H, Li X, et al. Janus heterostructure of cobalt and iron oxide as dual-functional electrocatalysts for overall water splitting. Nano Research, 2023, 16(2): 2245-2251. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-022-5024-9
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Received: 17 July 2022
Revised: 27 August 2022
Accepted: 07 September 2022
Published: 02 December 2022
© Tsinghua University Press 2022
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