Shi Zhengtian, Qi Xiangqian, Zhang Zhiyuan, Song Yingchao, Zhang Jianfa, Guo Chucai, Xu Wei, Liu Ken, Zhu Zhihong
College of Advanced Interdisciplinary Studies & Hunan Provincial Key Laboratory of Novel Nano-Optoelectronic Information Materials and Devices, National University of Defense Technology, Changsha, 410073, China.
Nanoscale. 2021 Apr 14;13(14):6890-6901. doi: 10.1039/d1nr00987g. Epub 2021 Apr 1.
The number of active sites and stability of the structure of electrocatalysts are the key factors in the process of overall water splitting. In this paper, cobalt-sulfide-selenium (Se:CoS) core-shell nanostructures are prepared by a simple two-step method, including hydrothermal reaction and chemical vapor deposition. The resulting product exhibits excellent electrochemical performance, owing to the synergistic effects between CoS and CoSe, as well as the plentiful active sites in the electrode structure. The Se:CoS material shows a more improved hydrogen evolution reaction activity compared to CoS and Co(OH)Cl precursor catalysts, with a low overpotential of only 240 mV achieved at 10 mA cm. Meanwhile, Se:CoS as a bifunctional water splitting catalyst also shows remarkably improved oxygen evolution reaction activity, with a low overpotential of only 1.32 V at 10 mA cm. The above results show that selenide/sulfide materials provide a new research direction for discovering high-performance and cheap electrode materials.
