Ultrahigh oxygen evolution reaction activity in Au doped co-based nanosheets

Abstract

Oxygen evolution reaction (OER) has attracted enormous interest as a key process for water electrolysis over the past years. The advance of this process relies on an effective catalyst. Herein, we employed single-atom Au doped Co-based nanosheets (NSs) to theoretically and experimentally evaluate the OER activity and also the interaction between Co and Au. We reveal that Au-Co(OH)2 NSs achieved a low overpotential of 0.26 V at 10 mA cm_2. This extraordinary phenomenon presents an overall superior performance greater than state-of-the-art Co-based catalysts in a sequence of a-Co(OH)2 < Co3O4 < CoOOH < Au-Co(OH)2. With ab initio calculations and analysis in the specific Au-Co(OH)2 configuration, we reveal that OER on highly active Au-Co(OH)2 originates from lattice oxygen, which is different from the conventional adsorbate evolution scheme. Explicitly, the configuration of Au-Co(OH)2 gives rise to oxygen non-bonding (ONB) states and oxygen holes, allowing direct O-O bond formation by a couple of oxidized oxygen with oxygen holes, offering a high OER activity. This study provides new insights for elucidating the origins of activity and synthesizing efficient OER electrocatalysts.