Highly Enhanced OER Activity of Amorphous Co3O4 via Fabricating Hybrid Amorphous-Crystalline Gold Nanostructures

Abstract

Hybrid nanostructures of amorphous cobalt oxide (Co3O4) and crystalline gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) showed strongly enhanced OER activity compared to pure amorphous Co3O4. Particularly, gold nanorods (Au NRs) integrated amorphous Co3O4 nanostructures (aCo3O4/Au NRs) required significantly low overpotential (225 mV) to produce geometric current density and needed 336 and 398 mV for achieving current density of 100 and 400 mA/cm2, respectively. Further, aCo3O4/Au NRs displayed good stability over 40 h at 336 mV.