AUTHOR=Ke Zunjian , Wang Haojie , He Dong , Song Xianyin , Tang Chongyang , Liu Jiangchao , He Lanli , Xiao Xiangheng , Jiang Changzhong 

TITLE=Co2P Nanoparticles Wrapped in Amorphous Porous Carbon as an Efficient and Stable Catalyst for Water Oxidation

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Chemistry

VOLUME=6

YEAR=2018

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/chemistry/articles/10.3389/fchem.2018.00580

DOI=10.3389/fchem.2018.00580

ISSN=2296-2646

ABSTRACT=<p>Exploring highly active, enduringly stable, and low-cost oxygen evolution reaction catalysts continues to be a dominant challenge to commercialize renewable electrochemical water-splitting technology. High-active and earth-abundant cobalt phosphides are recently considered as promising candidates. However, the poor inherent electron transfer efficiency and instability hinder its further development. In this work, a novel approach was demonstrated to effectively synthesize Co<sub>2</sub>P nanoparticles wrapped in amorphous porous carbon framework (Co<sub>2</sub>P/C). Benefiting from extremely high specific surface area of porous carbon, plenty of active sites were adequately exposed. Meanwhile, unique anchoring structure between Co<sub>2</sub>P nanoparticles and amorphous carbon outerwear insured high charge transfer efficiency and superior stability of Co<sub>2</sub>P/C. Due to these favorable properties, low overpotential of 281 mV at 10 mA cm<sup>−2</sup> and Tafel slope of 69 mV dec<sup>−1</sup> were achieved in resultant Co<sub>2</sub>P/C catalyst. More significantly, it only exhibited a negligible overpotential increase after 30 h stability test, and these performances entirely preceded commercial RuO<sub>2</sub> benchmark. In summary, we proposed a simple and feasible strategy to prepare metal phosphides wrapped with amorphous porous carbon outerwear for efficient and durable electrochemical water oxidation.</p>