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PPy enhanced Fe, W Co-doped Co3O4 free-standing electrode for highly-efficient oxygen evolution reaction

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Abstract

Electrochemical catalysts for the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) play a key role in highly-efficient water splitting and many other important energy conversion applications. Transition metal oxides are promising OER catalysts. In this work, Fe, W co-doped Co3O4 was grown on carbon fiber cloth (FeWCo3O4/CFC) and polypyrrole (PPy)/carbon fiber cloth (FeWCo3O4/PPy/CFC) through a simple anodic electrodeposition method. The FeWCo3O4/CFC free-standing electrode reached an electrocatalytic current density of 30.7 mA cm−2 at 400 mV overpotential with a Tafel slope of 177 mV dec−1. The PPy can serve as conductive binder and improve the contact between FeWCo3O4 and substrate. The resulting FeWCo3O4/PPy/CFC free-standing electrode reached an electrocatalytic current density of 36.2 mA cm−2 at 400 mV overpotential with a Tafel slope of 163 mV dec−1. The FeWCo3O4/PPy/CFC free-standing electrode shows low electric resistance and is able to catalyze OER at 10 mA cm−2 for 12 h without obvious decay under the optimized electrodeposition conditions. This study provides new insight for design and synthesis of highly-efficient OER catalyst.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Hong Kong Polytechnic University (Project No. RUKQ).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Applied Physics, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Kowloon, 999077, Hong Kong, China

    Qingzhao Hu, Yan Liu, Xuming Zhang & Haitao Huang

  2. Department of Materials Science and Engineering, City University of Hong Kong, Kowloon, 999077, Hong Kong, China

    Longtao Ma

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  1. Qingzhao Hu
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  2. Yan Liu
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  3. Longtao Ma
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  4. Xuming Zhang
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  5. Haitao Huang
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Correspondence to Haitao Huang.

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Hu, Q., Liu, Y., Ma, L. et al. PPy enhanced Fe, W Co-doped Co3O4 free-standing electrode for highly-efficient oxygen evolution reaction. J Appl Electrochem 48, 1189–1195 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10800-018-1211-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10800-018-1211-5

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