The Innovation
Volume 2, Issue 2, 28 May 2021, 100096
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Co3Mo3N—An efficient multifunctional electrocatalyst

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.xinn.2021.100096Get rights and content
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Public summary

  • Porous Co3Mo3N can act as a multifunctional electrocatalyst for OER, ORR, and HER

  • Co3Mo3N performs better than precious metal catalysts

  • Cobalt oxide-rich activation surface layer is shown to aid OER activity

  • Better ORR and HER performance of Co3Mo3N is due to Co and Mo d-states

Efficient catalysts are required for both oxidative and reductive reactions of hydrogen and oxygen in sustainable energy conversion devices. However, current precious metal-based electrocatalysts do not perform well across the full range of reactions and reported multifunctional catalysts are all complex hybrids. Here, we show that single-phase porous Co3Mo3N prepared via a facile method is an efficient and reliable electrocatalyst for three essential energy conversion reactions; oxygen evolution reaction (OER), oxygen reduction reaction (ORR), and hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) in alkaline solutions. Co3Mo3N presents outstanding OER, ORR, and HER activity with high durability, comparable with the commercial catalysts RuO2 for OER and Pt/C for ORR and HER. In practical demonstrations, Co3Mo3N gives high specific capacity (850 mA h gZn−1 at 10 mA cm−2) as the cathode in a zinc-air battery, and a low potential (1.63 V at 10 mA cm−2) used in a water-splitting electrolyzer. Availability of Co and Mo d-states appear to result in high ORR and HER performance, while the OER properties result from a cobalt oxide-rich activation surface layer. Our findings will inspire further development of bimetallic nitrides as cost-effective and versatile multifunctional catalysts that will enable scalable usage of electrochemical energy devices.

Keywords

ternary nitrides
multifunctional electrocatalysts
rechargeable Zn-air batteries
water splitting

Cited by (0)

7

These authors contributed equally