Ce Single-Atom Incorporation Enhances the Oxygen Evolution Reaction of Co₃O₄ in Acid

Abstract

Oxygen evolution reaction (OER) plays an important role in energy conversion processes such as water electrolysis and metal-air batteries. At present, finding a high-performance and low-cost catalyst for the OER in acidic media remains a great challenge. It is therefore important to develop efficient, robust, and inexpensive electrocatalysts by replacing noble metal-based catalysts with transition-metal electrocatalysts. Herein, we propose a facile method for incorporating Ce-metal single atoms into Co₃O₄ nanosheets to boost their OER activity and stability. Owing to the enhanced charge transfer and improved electronic structure resulting from Ce incorporation, the obtained Ce single-atom-doped Co₃O₄ nanosheet exhibits greatly enhanced OER performance. It achieves a 10 mA cm^-2 current density under a low overpotential of 348 mV in a 0.5 M H₂SO₄ solution with excellent stability, outperforming the state-of-the-art non-noble electrocatalysts recently reported in acid.