Ultrafine α-CoOOH Nanorods Activated with Iron for Exceptional Oxygen Evolution Reaction

Two-dimensional oxyhydroxide materials are proved to be a potential candidate for oxygen evolution reaction. Robust, efficient and cost-effective electrocatalysts are critical to overcome the sluggish kinetics and high overpotential of oxygen evolution reactions. Herein, a simple co-precipitation method followed by solvothermal treatment is used to synthesize Fe doped α-CoOOH at higher pH under optimum conditions for oxygen evolution reaction. The α-Fe0.24Co0.76OOH/NF illustrates superior OER electrocatalytic performance and requires an overpotential of only 280 mV to produce current density of 50 mA cm-2 with excellent stability. The detailed analysis reveals that the exceptional OER performance originates from thin nanorods and partially due to the replacement of Fe in α-CoOOH. This work illustrates the presence of interlayer chloride ions through energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS).