Grafting Cobalt Diselenide on Defective Graphene for Enhanced Oxygen Evolution Reaction

Xin Wang; Linzhou Zhuang; Tianwei He; Yi Jia; Longzhou Zhang; Xuecheng Yan; Minrui Gao; Aijun Du; Zhonghua Zhu; Xiangdong Yao; Shu-Hong Yu

doi:10.1016/j.isci.2018.08.013

Grafting Cobalt Diselenide on Defective Graphene for Enhanced Oxygen Evolution Reaction

iScience. 2018 Sep 28:7:145-153. doi: 10.1016/j.isci.2018.08.013. Epub 2018 Aug 16.

Authors

Xin Wang¹, Linzhou Zhuang², Tianwei He³, Yi Jia⁴, Longzhou Zhang⁴, Xuecheng Yan⁴, Minrui Gao⁵, Aijun Du³, Zhonghua Zhu², Xiangdong Yao⁶, Shu-Hong Yu⁷

Affiliations

¹ Division of Nanomaterials & Chemistry, Hefei National Laboratory for Physical Sciences at the Microscale, Collaborative Innovation Center of Suzhou Nano Science and Technology, Department of Chemistry, CAS Centre for Excellence in Nanoscience, Hefei Science Centre of CAS, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230026, China; School of Natural Sciences and Queensland, Micro- and Nanotechnology Centre, Griffith University, Nathan Campus, Brisbane 4111, Australia.
² School of Chemical Engineering, University of Queensland, Brisbane 4072, Australia.
³ School of Chemistry, Physics and Mechanical Engineering, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, QLD 4000, Australia.
⁴ School of Natural Sciences and Queensland, Micro- and Nanotechnology Centre, Griffith University, Nathan Campus, Brisbane 4111, Australia.
⁵ Division of Nanomaterials & Chemistry, Hefei National Laboratory for Physical Sciences at the Microscale, Collaborative Innovation Center of Suzhou Nano Science and Technology, Department of Chemistry, CAS Centre for Excellence in Nanoscience, Hefei Science Centre of CAS, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230026, China.
⁶ School of Natural Sciences and Queensland, Micro- and Nanotechnology Centre, Griffith University, Nathan Campus, Brisbane 4111, Australia. Electronic address: x.yao@griffith.edu.au.
⁷ Division of Nanomaterials & Chemistry, Hefei National Laboratory for Physical Sciences at the Microscale, Collaborative Innovation Center of Suzhou Nano Science and Technology, Department of Chemistry, CAS Centre for Excellence in Nanoscience, Hefei Science Centre of CAS, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230026, China. Electronic address: shyu@ustc.edu.cn.

Abstract

Cobalt diselenide (CoSe₂) has been demonstrated to be an efficient and economic electrocatalyst for oxygen evolution reaction (OER) both experimentally and theoretically. However, the catalytic performance of up-to-now reported CoSe₂-based OER catalysts is still far below commercial expectation. Herein, we report a hybrid catalyst consisting of CoSe₂ nanosheets grafted on defective graphene (DG). This catalyst exhibits a largely enhanced OER activity and robust stability in alkaline solution (overpotential at 10 mA cm^-2: 270 mV; Tafel plots: 64 mV dec^-1). Both experimental evidence and density functional theory calculations reveal that the outstanding OER performance of this hybrid catalyst can be attributed to the synergetic effect of exposed cobalt atoms and carbon defects (electron transfer from CoSe₂ layer to defect sites at DG). Our results suggest a promising way for the development of highly efficient and low-cost OER catalysts based on transition metal dichalcogenides.

Keywords: Catalysis; Chemistry; Energy Materials.