New Paper in ACS Catal.

Our new paper on the investigation of Crystallinity-Modulated Co_2–xV_xO₄ Nanoplates for Efficient Electrochemical Water Oxidation just published in ACS Catal.! Big congratulations to Chaoran!

Cost-efficient and durable oxygen evolution catalysts are in great demand, which are dominated not only by the component of the electrocatalysts but also by their molecular structure and crystallinity. Herein, we developed an efficient cobalt–vanadium spinel-type electrocatalyst with an extremely high concentration of Co³⁺ ions by tuning the balanced vanadium ions’ concentration in crystallinity-modulated Co_2–xV_xO₄ nanoplates. This resulted in the lowest overpotential of 240 mV at 10 mA/cm², the smallest Tafel slope of 45 mV dec^–1, and a current density of 100 mA/cm² at an overpotential of 280 mV for water oxidation, which is remarkably 20 times better than that of the benchmark RuO₂ catalyst, along with excellent stability. Such excellent performance is due to the very high Co³⁺/Co²⁺ ratio of 2.84 achieved in situ in the low-crystallinity Co_2–xV_xO₄ (LC-Co_2–xV_xO₄) sample, which is 40% higher than that of the widely reported Co₃O₄, as evidenced by both operando X-ray absorption near-edge spectroscopy and in situ X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. These findings stimulate the opportunities to explore Co_2–xV_xO₄ as a class of nonprecious-metal-based efficient OER electrocatalysts.