Wang Yunpeng, Ge Zhenhua, Li Xing, Zhao Jinping, Ma Bo, Chen Yantao
Tianjin Key Lab for Photoelectric Materials and Devices, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Tianjin University of Technology, Tianjin 300384, China.
Tianjin Key Lab for Photoelectric Materials and Devices, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Tianjin University of Technology, Tianjin 300384, China.
J Colloid Interface Sci. 2020 May 1;567:308-315. doi: 10.1016/j.jcis.2020.02.030. Epub 2020 Feb 10.
Water oxidation reaction often impedes the overall water splitting for the multi-step electron transfer process. Transition metal sulfides are earth abundant and widely studied for accelerating water splitting reactions. Cuprous sulfide, which is a common mineral and generally regarded as less active for oxygen evolution reaction, can also effectively promote water oxidation by introducing coarse surfaces on the as-prepared CuS nanorod arrays, with a largely increased double layer capacitance and thereby a greatly improved electrochemically active surface area, which only needs an overpotential of 360 mV to deliver 50 mA cm and exhibits a rapid kinetics for oxygen evolution reaction. The fabrication strategy of creating coarse surfaces on pre-synthesized nanostructures for increased electrochemically active surface area can be promising for developing precious-metal-free electrocatalysts by providing more active sites and surface areas for water oxidation, and is also valuable for promoting the activity of less active but earth-abundant materials to achieve a better cost-effectiveness in scale-up application of water splitting technology.
水氧化反应常常会阻碍多步电子转移过程中的整体水分解。过渡金属硫化物储量丰富，在加速水分解反应方面得到了广泛研究。硫化亚铜是一种常见矿物，通常被认为对析氧反应活性较低，但通过在制备的硫化铜纳米棒阵列上引入粗糙表面，也能有效促进水氧化，其双层电容大幅增加，从而极大地提高了电化学活性表面积，仅需360 mV的过电位就能提供50 mA/cm²的电流，并且析氧反应动力学迅速。在预合成的纳米结构上制造粗糙表面以增加电化学活性表面积的制备策略，有望通过为水氧化提供更多活性位点和表面积来开发无贵金属的电催化剂，对于提高活性较低但储量丰富的材料的活性，在水分解技术的大规模应用中实现更好的成本效益也具有重要价值。
