Highly active and durable nitrogen-doped CoP/CeO2 nanowire heterostructures for overall water splitting

Developing high-efficiency, low-cost, and durable bifunctional electrocatalysts for oxygen evolution reaction (OER) and hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) is greatly desirable and challenging. Herein, a highly active and durable nitrogen-doped CoP coupled CeO2 nanowire heterostructure (N-CoP/CeO2) electrocatalyst is prepared on carbon cloth. The resultant N-CoP/CeO2 exhibits superb catalytic activities for OER and HER, featuring low overpotentials of 215 and 74 mV at 10 mA cm-2 in 1.0 M KOH. The N-CoP/CeO2 assembled water electrolyzer has super stability, which needs relatively low cell voltages of 1.52 V@10 mA cm-2 over 42 days (approximate to 95.9 % retention) and 1.80 V@400 mA cm-2 over 21 days (approximate to 94.4 % retention), outperforming most reported cost-effective electrocatalysts. Theoretical calculations reveal that the metallic heterostructure interfaces of N-CoP/ CeO2 possess a fast electron transfer pathway, optimized adsorption/desorption process of reactive in-termediates, and reduced reaction energetic barriers, thus enhancing the electrocatalytic activity. Additionally, the robust three-dimensional configuration and the oxygen vacancies-rich CeO2 component in N-CoP/CeO2 are regarded as significant contributors to improving stability and promoting long-term durability.

Automated summary

In this study, a highly active and durable N-CoP/CeO2 nanowire heterostructure electrocatalyst was developed, showing excellent catalytic activity for both oxygen evolution reaction (OER) and hydrogen evolution reaction (HER). The N-CoP/CeO2 catalyst exhibited low overpotentials of 215 and 74 mV at 10 mA cm-2 in 1.0 M KOH. The assembled water electrolyzer with N-CoP/CeO2 displayed super stability, maintaining 95.9% catalytic activity over 42 days at 1.52 V@10 mA cm-2. Theoretical calculations revealed that the metallic heterostructure interfaces of N-CoP/CeO2 enhanced the electrocatalytic activity through fast electron transfer and optimized adsorption/desorption processes.