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Bifunctional catalysts of Co3O4@GCN tubular nanostructured (TNS) hybrids for oxygen and hydrogen evolution reactions

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Abstract

Catalysts for oxygen and hydrogen evolution reactions (OER/HER) are at the heart of renewable green energy sources such as water splitting. Although incredible efforts have been made to develop efficient catalysts for OER and HER, great challenges still remain in the development of bifunctional catalysts. Here, we report a novel hybrid of Co3O4 embedded in tubular nanostructures of graphitic carbon nitride (GCN) and synthesized through a facile, large-scale chemical method at low temperature. Strong synergistic effects between Co3O4 and GCN resulted in excellent performance as a bifunctional catalyst for OER and HER. The high surface area, unique tubular nanostructure, and composition of the hybrid made all redox sites easily available for catalysis and provided faster ionic and electronic conduction. The Co3O4@GCN tubular nanostructured (TNS) hybrid exhibited the lowest overpotential (0.12 V) and excellent current density (147 mA/cm2) in OER, better than benchmarks IrO2 and RuO2, and with superior durability in alkaline media. Furthermore, the Co3O4@GCN TNS hybrid demonstrated excellent performance in HER, with a much lower onset and overpotential, and a stable current density. It is expected that the Co3O4@GCN TNS hybrid developed in this study will be an attractive alternative to noble metals catalysts in large scale water splitting and fuel cells.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Research Centre of Materials Science, Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing, 100081, China

    Muhammad Tahir, Tariq Mahmood, Faheem. K. Butt, Imran Aslam, M. Tanveer, Faryal Idrees, Syed Khalid & Chuanbao Cao

  2. Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Peking University, Beijing, 100081, China

    Nasir Mahmood & Yanglong Hou

  3. Beijing Key Laboratory for Chemical Power Source and Green Catalyst, School of Chemical Engineering and Environment, Beijing Institution of Technology, Beijing, 100081, China

    Xiaoxue Zhang & Yiming Yan

  4. Sustainable Energy Technologies (SET) center building No 3, Room 1c23, College of Engineering, King Saud University, PO BOX 800, Riyadh, 11421, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

    Imran Shakir

  5. Key Laboratory for Green Chemical Technology of the Ministry of Education, School of Chemical Engineering and Technology, Tianjin University; Collaborative Innovative Center of Chemical Science and Engineering (Tianjin), Tianjin, 300072, China

    Muhammad Tahir & Jijun Zou

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  1. Muhammad Tahir
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  2. Nasir Mahmood
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  3. Xiaoxue Zhang
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Correspondence to Chuanbao Cao or Yanglong Hou.

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Tahir, M., Mahmood, N., Zhang, X. et al. Bifunctional catalysts of Co3O4@GCN tubular nanostructured (TNS) hybrids for oxygen and hydrogen evolution reactions. Nano Res. 8, 3725–3736 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-015-0872-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-015-0872-1

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