Engineering surface atomic structure of single-crystal cobalt (II) oxide nanorods for superior electrocatalysis
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Date
2016
Authors
Ling, T.
Yan, D.
Jiao, Y.
Wang, H.
Zheng, Y.
Zheng, X.
Mao, J.
Du, X.
Hu, Z.
Jaroniec, M.
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Nature Communications, 2016; 7(1):1-8
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Tao Ling, Dong-Yang Yan, Yan Jiao, Hui Wang, Yao Zheng, Xueli Zheng, Jing Mao, Xi-Wen Du, Zhenpeng Hu, Mietek Jaroniec, Shi-Zhang Qiao
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Abstract
Engineering the surface structure at the atomic level can be used to precisely and effectively manipulate the reactivity and durability of catalysts. Here we report tuning of the atomic structure of one-dimensional single-crystal cobalt (II) oxide (CoO) nanorods by creating oxygen vacancies on pyramidal nanofacets. These CoO nanorods exhibit superior catalytic activity and durability towards oxygen reduction/evolution reactions. The combined experimental studies, microscopic and spectroscopic characterization, and density functional theory calculations reveal that the origins of the electrochemical activity of single-crystal CoO nanorods are in the oxygen vacancies that can be readily created on the oxygen-terminated {111} nanofacets, which favourably affect the electronic structure of CoO, assuring a rapid charge transfer and optimal adsorption energies for intermediates of oxygen reduction/evolution reactions. These results show that the surface atomic structure engineering is important for the fabrication of efficient and durable electrocatalysts.
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© The Author(s) 2016. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to reproduce the material. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/