School of Materials Science and Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia 30332-0245, USA.
New Energy Research Institute, School of Environment and Energy, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou 510006, China.
Nat Commun. 2017 Feb 27;8:14586. doi: 10.1038/ncomms14586.
Rechargeable metal-air batteries and water splitting are highly competitive options for a sustainable energy future, but their commercialization is hindered by the absence of cost-effective, highly efficient and stable catalysts for the oxygen evolution reaction. Here we report the rational design and synthesis of a double perovskite PrBaSrCoFeO nanofiber as a highly efficient and robust catalyst for the oxygen evolution reaction. Co-doping of strontium and iron into PrBaCoO is found to be very effective in enhancing intrinsic activity (normalized by the geometrical surface area, ∼4.7 times), as validated by electrochemical measurements and first-principles calculations. Further, the nanofiber morphology enhances its mass activity remarkably (by ∼20 times) as the diameter is reduced to ∼20 nm, attributed to the increased surface area and an unexpected intrinsic activity enhancement due possibly to a favourable e electron filling associated with partial surface reduction, as unravelled from chemical titration and electron energy-loss spectroscopy.
可充电金属-空气电池和水分解是可持续能源未来极具竞争力的选择，但由于缺乏用于氧气析出反应的具有成本效益、高效和稳定的催化剂，其商业化受到阻碍。在此，我们报告了一种双钙钛矿 PrBaSrCoFeO 纳米纤维的合理设计和合成，该纤维作为氧气析出反应的高效且坚固的催化剂。研究发现，将锶和铁共掺杂到 PrBaCoO 中可极大地提高本征活性（按几何表面积归一化，提高约 4.7 倍），这一点通过电化学测量和第一性原理计算得到了验证。此外，纳米纤维形态可将其质量活性显著提高（提高约 20 倍），因为直径减小到约 20nm，这归因于表面积的增加以及可能由于部分表面还原引起的有利 e 电子填充而导致的本征活性增强，这一点可从化学滴定和电子能量损失光谱中揭示。
