Mesoporous cobalt-iron based materials as highly efficient electrocatalysts for oxygen evolution reaction

The cost-effective and high-performance electrocatalysts toward oxygen evolution reaction (OER) have been a research hotspot for the electrochemical water splitting. In view of the unique surface effect and good electrical conductivity, mesoporous nanomaterials have been a promising alternative to the precious RuO2 for OER. Herein, two mesoporous CoFe-based nanomaterials were designed and synthesized through a facile solvothermal process as efficient OER electrocatalysts in 1.0 M KOH solution. The catalysts with a larger pore size show more excellent catalytic performance, which possess a lower overpotential of 248 mV at 10 mA.cm(-2) and a Tafel slope of 58.7 mV.dec(-1), illustrating an increase of catalytic activities toward OER with the enhancement of mesoporous pore diameters. This work also contributes to the development of OER nanomaterials and the understanding of the effects of mesoporous on catalytic activity.