Engineering morphologies of cobalt oxide/phosphate-carbon nanohybrids for high-efficiency electrochemical water oxidation and reduction

Active non-noble metal catalysts plays a decisive role for water electrolysis,however,the rational design and development of cost-efficient electrocatalysts with Pt/IrO2-like activity is still a challenging task.Herein,a facile one-step electrodeposition route in deep eutectic solvents(DESs) is developed for morphology-controllable synthesis of cobalt oxide/phosphate-carbon nano hybrids on nickel foam(CoPO@C/NF).A series of CoPO@C/NF nanostructures including cubes,octahedrons,microspheres and nanoflowers are synthesized,which show promising electrocatalytic properties toward oxygen and hydrogen evolution reactions(OER/HER).Such surface self-organized microstructure with accessible active sites make a significant contribution to the enhanced electrochemical activity,and hybridizing cobalt oxide with cobalt pyrophosphates and carbon can result in enhanced OER performance through synergistic catalysis.Among all nanostructures,the obtained microspherical CoPO@C/NF-3 catalyst exhibits excellent catalytic activities for OER and HER in 1.0 M KOH,affording an anodic current density of 10 mA cm^(-2) at overpotentials of 293 mV for OER and 93 mV for HER,with good long-time stability.This work offers a practical route for engineering the high-performance electrocatalysts towards efficient energy conversion and storage devices.