1D iron cobaltite electrode for efficient electrochemical water oxidation

Abstract

Developing highly efficient, stable, and inexpensive electrocatalysts for oxygen evolution reaction (OER) is an ongoing challenge due to the high energy barrier imposed by the OER during electrochemical water splitting. Herein, we report one-dimensional iron-cobalt oxide (FeCo2O4) nanorod arrays supported on nickel foam (NF) synthesized via a simple chemical bath deposition (CBD) method to accelerate OER. Consequently, the FeCo2O4 nanorods exhibit significantly increased OER activity in alkaline solutions while maintaining high stability and a low OER overpotential of 290 mV at 25 mA cm−2. The improved OER performance is attributed to the electrode's enhanced intrinsic electrocatalytic activity, which is due to the synergetic effect of Fe and Co, a large number of active sites, and a low charge transfer resistance.