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Probing self-optimization of carbon support in oxygen evolution reaction

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Abstract

Despite acknowledgment of structural reconstruction of materials following oxygen evolution reaction (OER) reaction, the role of support during the reconstruction process has been ignored. Given this, we directly in situ transform the residual iron present in raw single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNT) into Fe2O3 and thus build Fe2O3-CNT as the model system. Intriguingly, an anomalous self-optimization occurred on SWCNT and the derived components show satisfactory electrochemical performance. Soft X-ray absorption spectroscopy (sXAS) analysis and theory calculation correspondingly indicate that self-optimization yields stronger interaction between SWCNT and Fe2O3 nanoparticles, where the electrons migrate from Fe2O3 to optimized SWCNT. Such polarization will generate a positive charge center and thus boost the OER activity. This finding directly observes the self-optimization of support effect, providing a new perspective for OER and related electrochemical reactions.

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Acknowledgements

This work was financially supported in part by the National Key R&D Program of China (Nos. 2017YFA0303500 and 2020YFA0405800), National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) (Nos. U1932201, U2032113, and 22075264), CAS Collaborative Innovation Program of Hefei Science Center (Nos. 2019HSC-CIP002 and 2020HSC-CIP002), the USTC Start-Up Fund, and CAS Interdisciplinary Innovation Team. L. S. acknowledges the support from Key Laboratory of Advanced Energy Materials Chemistry (Ministry of Education), Nankai University (111 projects, B12015). We thank the Beijing Synchrotron Radiation Facility (1W1B, BSRF), the Hefei Synchrotron Radiation Facility (MCD-A and MCD-B Soochow Beamline for Energy Materials at NSRL), and the USTC Center for Micro and Nanoscale Research and Fabrication for help in characterizations.

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  1. Wenjie Xu, Dengfeng Cao, and Oyawale Adetunji Moses contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. National Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory, CAS Center for Excellence in Nanoscience, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, 230026, China

    Wenjie Xu, Dengfeng Cao, Beibei Sheng, Hongwei Shou, Shuangming Chen & Li Song

  2. Materials Interfaces Center, Shenzhen Institute of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Science, Shenzhen, 440305, China

    Oyawale Adetunji Moses

  3. Institutes of Physical Science and Information Technology, Anhui University, Hefei, 230601, China

    Chuanqiang Wu

  4. Department of Materials Sciences and Engineering, School of Chemistry and Materials Sciences, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, 230026, China

    Hongwei Shou & Xiaojun Wu

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  1. Wenjie Xu
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Correspondence to Shuangming Chen.

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Xu, W., Cao, D., Moses, O.A. et al. Probing self-optimization of carbon support in oxygen evolution reaction. Nano Res. 14, 4534–4540 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-021-3368-1

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