Indexed by: Research Article

First Author: Liu,Jianyun

Correspondence Author: Wang,Tanyuan,Li,Qing

Co-author: Huang,Yunhui,Shen,Yue,Sun,Hao,Cai,Zhao,Wang,Shiyu,Liu,Shuxia,Liao,Mengyi,Lin,Zijie

Journal: Energy & Environmental Science

Affiliation of Author(s): 华中科技大学

Place of Publication: 英国

Document Type: Article

Volume: 17

Issue: 9

Page Number: 3088-3098

ISSN No.: 1754-5706

Key Words: Electronic-Structure; Oxidation; Catalyst; Spectroscopy

DOI number: 10.1039/D4EE00173G

Date of Publication: 2024-05-27

Impact Factor: 32.4

Abstract: The development of efficient and durable earth-abundant electrocatalysts for the acidic oxygen evolution reaction (OER) is crucial for the large-scale application of proton exchange membrane water electrolyzers (PEMWEs). Here, we report a novel amorphous Mo–Ce oxide supported single-atom Co (CoSA-MoCeOx) encapsulated in bamboo-like carbon nanotubes (BCTs) catalysts for the acidic OER. Operando X-ray absorption spectroscopy confirms that the Mo–Ce oxide can promote the transformation of Co2+ sites into Co3+–O sites with lower coordination number and abundant oxygen vacancies at a low voltage, leading to a dual-metal-site lattice oxygen-mediated (LOM) pathway with fast OER kinetics. Moreover, the confinement effect of BCTs on CoSA-MoCeOx can reduce the direct contact between the catalyst and the acid, thus improving its corrosion resistance. The optimized catalyst exhibits a low overpotential of 239 mV for the OER at 10 mA cm−2 in 0.5 M H2SO4 and maintains exceptional stability for more than 60 hours in PEMWEs, representing one of the best non-noble metal catalysts. Density functional theory calculations show that the strong interaction between single-atom Co sites and Mo–Ce oxide reduces the adsorption energy barrier of the LOM pathway from 1.60 eV to 1.08 eV, and inhibits the dissolution of the support with the increased vacancy formation energy of Mo, thus improving the OER activity and stability of the catalyst in acid.