Accelerating charge transfer to enhance H₂ evolution of defect-rich CoFe₂O₄ by constructing a Schottky junction

Abstract

We demonstrate a charge transfer boosted hydrogen (H2) evolution of transition metal oxides via a Schottky junction. The FeNi and metallic defect-rich CoFe2O4 (DCF) as well as semiconducting nitrogen-doped carbon (NC), named as FeNi/DCF/NC, possessed only 6.5% charge transfer resistance of DCF. Theoretical calculations indicate that the enhanced electron movement happened from FeNi/DCF to NC. The H2 evolution activity of FeNi/DCF/NC showed 5.8-fold improvement compared to that of DCF at the overpotential of 400 mV in 1.0 M KOH. This work provides an effective way to enhance the electrocatalytic activity of oxides for the H2 evolution reaction and related reactions.