Contribution of carbon support in cost-effective metal oxide/carbon composite catalysts for the alkaline oxygen evolution reaction

Abstract

In order to reveal the contribution of carbon support in metal oxide-based catalysts for the oxygen evolution reaction (OER), the active carbon is facilely functionalized with various active groups and composite with Ba0.5Sr0.5Co0.8Fe0.2O3-δ (BSCF). By systemically investigating the electrochemical catalytic properties of the composite catalysts, it can be found that the enhancement in the OER activity of BSCF is mainly attributed to the co-catalysis effect with the OER process altered. The effect of carbon support on the electron conductivity improvement, which is widely considered in electrochemical systems, can be ignored during the OER catalysis on the rotating disk electrode. Functionalization with proper groups of the carbon support is, therefore, considered to be an effective and facile strategy to further improve the OER activity of metal oxide-based catalysts.