Liu Yuchuan, Guan Xu, Huang Baobing, Wei Qiaohua, Xie Zailai
Fujian Provincial Key Laboratory of Electrochemical Energy Storage Materials, College of Chemistry, Fuzhou University, Fuzhou, China.
Front Chem. 2020 Jan 9;7:805. doi: 10.3389/fchem.2019.00805. eCollection 2019.
Oxygen electrocatalysis, especially oxygen evolution reaction (OER), is a central process during the actual application of rechargeable metal-air battery. It is still challenging to develop ideal electrocatalysts to substitute the commercial noble metal-based materials. In this work, we have constructed a new material, CoP nanoparticles, which are encapsulated by a biomolecule-derived N, P-codoped carbon nanosheets via a simple and facile one-step strategy. The as-prepared material releases a high electrocatalytic activity and stability for OER, with an overpotential of 310 mV to achieve 10 mA/cm in 1 M KOH. Importantly, we found that the phosphoric acid can not only introduce phosphorus dopant into 2D N-doped carbon nanosheets and play a role of pore-forming agent, but also participate in the formation of active center (cobalt phosphide). Moreover, the coverage of N, P-doped carbon can prevent the CoP nanoparticles from corrosion under the harsh reaction medium to achieve high and stable activity. We believe that our strategy can offer a novel pathway to synthesize new transition metal-based catalysts for electrocatalysis or other heterogeneous catalysis.
氧电催化，尤其是析氧反应（OER），是可充电金属空气电池实际应用中的核心过程。开发理想的电催化剂以替代商业贵金属基材料仍然具有挑战性。在这项工作中，我们通过一种简单易行的一步策略构建了一种新材料，即由生物分子衍生的N、P共掺杂碳纳米片包裹的CoP纳米颗粒。所制备的材料对OER表现出高电催化活性和稳定性，在1 M KOH中过电位为310 mV时可实现10 mA/cm²。重要的是，我们发现磷酸不仅可以将磷掺杂剂引入二维N掺杂碳纳米片中并起到造孔剂的作用，还参与活性中心（磷化钴）的形成。此外，N、P掺杂碳的覆盖可以防止CoP纳米颗粒在苛刻的反应介质中被腐蚀，从而实现高稳定性活性。我们相信我们的策略可以为合成用于电催化或其他多相催化的新型过渡金属基催化剂提供一条新途径。
