Core-Corona Co/CoP Cluster Strung on Carbon Nanotubes as Schottky Catalyst for Glucose Oxidation Assisted H2 production

The simultaneous improvement of intrinsic activities and the number of active sites in electrocatalysts is the bottle-neck issue for H2 production. Herein, commercial CNTs serving as conductive kernels are in situ coupled with 3D ZIF-67 derived Co/CoP core-corona clusters. Such a hierarchical bead string nanostructure not only possesses highly exposed active sites, but also favours fast electron transfer for electrocatalytic kinetics. Our material shows excellent HER (η10 = −151 mV) and glucose oxidation reaction (GOR) performance, showing a smaller hybrid water splitting potential of 1.42 V compared to conventional water splitting (η10 = 1.74 V) for H2 production. DFT calculations indicate that the Schottky heterointerface at Co/CoP decreases the initial H2O dissociation energy barrier and possesses a thermoneutral H* adsorption free energy for the HER, as well as reducing the energy barrier for the GOR. Meanwhile, more oxidative cobalt oxyhydroxide favoured the GOR process. The present work opens a new avenue for designing Mott–Schottky multifunctional electrocatalysts for both energy-saving H2 production and value-added products.