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Nano Research 2015, 8(11): 3725-3736 https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-015-0872-1
Research Article | Issue | Published: 01 October 2015

Bifunctional catalysts of Co3O4@GCN tubular nanostructured (TNS) hybrids for oxygen and hydrogen evolution reactions

Show Author's Information Muhammad Tahir1,5,§,  Nasir Mahmood2,§,  Xiaoxue Zhang3,  Tariq Mahmood1,  Faheem. K. Butt1,  Imran Aslam1,  M. Tanveer1,  Faryal Idrees1,  Syed Khalid1,  Imran Shakir4,  Yiming Yan3,  Jijun Zou5,  Chuanbao Cao1( ),  Yanglong Hou2( )
Research Centre of Materials ScienceBeijing Institute of TechnologyBeijing100081China
Department of Materials Science and EngineeringPeking UniversityBeijing100081China
Beijing Key Laboratory for Chemical Power Source and Green CatalystSchool of Chemical Engineering and EnvironmentBeijing Institution of TechnologyBeijing100081China
Sustainable Energy Technologies (SET) center building No 3Room 1c23College of EngineeringKing Saud UniversityPO BOX 800Riyadh11421Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
Key Laboratory for Green Chemical Technology of the Ministry of EducationSchool of Chemical Engineering and TechnologyTianjin University; Collaborative Innovative Center of Chemical Science and Engineering (Tianjin)Tianjin300072China

§ These authors contributed equally to this work.

Keywords:
carbon nitride, cobalt oxide, oxygen evolution reaction, hydrogen evolution reaction, bifunctional catalyst
Cite this article:
Tahir M, Mahmood N, Zhang X, et al. Bifunctional catalysts of Co3O4@GCN tubular nanostructured (TNS) hybrids for oxygen and hydrogen evolution reactions. Nano Research, 2015, 8(11): 3725-3736. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-015-0872-1
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Abstract Full text Electronic supplementary material About this article

Catalysts for oxygen and hydrogen evolution reactions (OER/HER) are at the heart of renewable green energy sources such as water splitting. Although incredible efforts have been made to develop efficient catalysts for OER and HER, great challenges still remain in the development of bifunctional catalysts. Here, we report a novel hybrid of Co3O4 embedded in tubular nanostructures of graphitic carbon nitride (GCN) and synthesized through a facile, large-scale chemical method at low temperature. Strong synergistic effects between Co3O4 and GCN resulted in excellent performance as a bifunctional catalyst for OER and HER. The high surface area, unique tubular nanostructure, and composition of the hybrid made all redox sites easily available for catalysis and provided faster ionic and electronic conduction. The Co3O4@GCN tubular nanostructured (TNS) hybrid exhibited the lowest overpotential (0.12 V) and excellent current density (147 mA/cm2) in OER, better than benchmarks IrO2 and RuO2, and with superior durability in alkaline media. Furthermore, the Co3O4@GCN TNS hybrid demonstrated excellent performance in HER, with a much lower onset and overpotential, and a stable current density. It is expected that the Co3O4@GCN TNS hybrid developed in this study will be an attractive alternative to noble metals catalysts in large scale water splitting and fuel cells.


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Electronic supplementary material
About this article

Bifunctional catalysts of Co3O4@GCN tubular nanostructured (TNS) hybrids for oxygen and hydrogen evolution reactions

Show Author's information Muhammad Tahir1,5,§, Nasir Mahmood2,§, Xiaoxue Zhang3, Tariq Mahmood1, Faheem. K. Butt1, Imran Aslam1, M. Tanveer1, Faryal Idrees1, Syed Khalid1, Imran Shakir4, Yiming Yan3, Jijun Zou5, Chuanbao Cao1( ), Yanglong Hou2( )
Research Centre of Materials ScienceBeijing Institute of TechnologyBeijing100081China
Department of Materials Science and EngineeringPeking UniversityBeijing100081China
Beijing Key Laboratory for Chemical Power Source and Green CatalystSchool of Chemical Engineering and EnvironmentBeijing Institution of TechnologyBeijing100081China
Sustainable Energy Technologies (SET) center building No 3Room 1c23College of EngineeringKing Saud UniversityPO BOX 800Riyadh11421Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
Key Laboratory for Green Chemical Technology of the Ministry of EducationSchool of Chemical Engineering and TechnologyTianjin University; Collaborative Innovative Center of Chemical Science and Engineering (Tianjin)Tianjin300072China

§ These authors contributed equally to this work.

Abstract

Catalysts for oxygen and hydrogen evolution reactions (OER/HER) are at the heart of renewable green energy sources such as water splitting. Although incredible efforts have been made to develop efficient catalysts for OER and HER, great challenges still remain in the development of bifunctional catalysts. Here, we report a novel hybrid of Co3O4 embedded in tubular nanostructures of graphitic carbon nitride (GCN) and synthesized through a facile, large-scale chemical method at low temperature. Strong synergistic effects between Co3O4 and GCN resulted in excellent performance as a bifunctional catalyst for OER and HER. The high surface area, unique tubular nanostructure, and composition of the hybrid made all redox sites easily available for catalysis and provided faster ionic and electronic conduction. The Co3O4@GCN tubular nanostructured (TNS) hybrid exhibited the lowest overpotential (0.12 V) and excellent current density (147 mA/cm2) in OER, better than benchmarks IrO2 and RuO2, and with superior durability in alkaline media. Furthermore, the Co3O4@GCN TNS hybrid demonstrated excellent performance in HER, with a much lower onset and overpotential, and a stable current density. It is expected that the Co3O4@GCN TNS hybrid developed in this study will be an attractive alternative to noble metals catalysts in large scale water splitting and fuel cells.

Keywords: carbon nitride, cobalt oxide, oxygen evolution reaction, hydrogen evolution reaction, bifunctional catalyst

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Publication history
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Acknowledgements

Publication history

Received: 05 June 2015
Revised: 29 July 2015
Accepted: 30 July 2015
Published: 01 October 2015
Issue date: November 2015

Copyright

© Tsinghua University Press and Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2015

Acknowledgements

Acknowledgements

Work at Beijing Institute of Technology was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 23171023 and 50972017) and Doctoral Program of the Ministry of Education of China (No. 20101101110026); Work at Peking University was supported by the NSFC-RGC Joint Research Scheme (No. 51361165201), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 51125001 and 51172005), Beijing Natural Science Foundation (No. 2122022) and Doctoral Program of the Ministry of Education of China (No. 20120001110078). Deanship of Scientific Research at King Saud University through Prolific Research Group Project (No. PRG-1436-25).

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