Bimetallic oxide coupled with B-doped graphene as highly efficient electrocatalyst for oxygen evolution reaction

Abstract

Developing electrocatalysts with high performance and low cost for the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) is of great importance for fabricating renewable energy storage and conversion devices. Here, a series of boron-doped graphene (BG)-supported bimetallic oxides of Co and Ni were obtained and served as OER electrocatalysts. Surprisingly, the annealed Co-Ni-Ox/BG with a Co/Ni ratio of 1:1 exhibits high performance toward oxygen evolution in alkaline electrolyte. The overpotential is only 310 mV at the current density of 10 mA cm−2, superior to many mono-metallic oxides reported before, and even comparable to the commercial RuO2. The regulation of charge distribution in bimetallic oxides and the strong synergistic coupling effects together contribute to the superior electrocatalytic performance of the Co-Ni-Ox/BG toward OER. This study also offers several effective ways to design high-performance OER electrocatalysts for water splitting.