Regulating Lattice Oxygen of Co3O4/CeO2 Heterojunction Nanonetworks for Enhanced Oxygen Evolution

Abstract

Developing efficient and cost-effective electrocatalysts as substitutes for noble metals remains a big challenge, which demands significant advancements in both material designing and mechanistic understanding. Herein, Co3O4/CeO2 heterojunction nanonetworks are successfully synthesized through metal organic framework precursor. Notably, Co3O4/CeO2 heterojunctions can effectively regulate electronic structure of Co3O4, thus inducing oxygen atom from Co3O4 lattice to participating in oxygen evolution reaction (OER) via lattice oxygen-mediated mechanism, which reduces reaction overpotential. Additionally, the porous network structure can facilitate electrolyte transfer and provide more active sites for electrocatalytic reactions. Consequently, Co3O4/CeO2 heterojunction nanonetworks exhibit great electrocatalytic performance and high durability, requiring only an OER overpotential of 259 mV at current density of 100 mA cm−2 in 1 M KOH, markedly outperforming Co3O4 nanocatalysts (309 mV) and showing promising potential as substitutable non-noble OER catalysts.