Chromium doping enabled improvement in alkaline seawater oxidation over cobalt carbonate hydroxide nanowire array.

Abstract

The presence of chlorine species in seawater can cause severe anode corrosion, highlighting the critical need for the design of efficient and robust electrocatalysts towards the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) for hydrogen production. Herein, we present a chromium doped cobalt carbonate hydroxide nanowire array on nickel foam (Cr-CoCH/NF) as an effective OER electrocatalyst in seawater. In alkaline conditions, Cr-CoCH/NF exhibits a low overpotential of 450 mV to achieve 500 mA cm-2, surpassing that of CoCH/NF (614 mV). Additionally, it demonstrates 200 h of continuous oxygen evolution testing.