Interfacial engineering of α-Fe2O3 coupled Co3O4 heterostructures anchored on g-C3N4 structure for enhanced electrocatalytic performance in alkaline oxygen evolution reaction

Abstract

Creating an efficient electrocatalytic oxygen evolution reaction (OER) by developing a low-cost, stable metal oxide nanocomposite based on earth-abundant materials is an essential and highly efficient method to meet the increasing demand for sustainable energy. For this reason, we have proposed a simple and effective interfacial engineering approach to construct a novel graphitic carbon nitride (g-C3N4) strongly coupled with α-Fe2O3 and Co3O4 as dual co-catalysts for highly active electrocatalysts (ECs) OER in a typical alkaline electrolyte. The detailed structural, chemical, and morphological characterizations were performed by various analyses. The as-synthesized g-C3N4/Co3O4/α-Fe2O3 (GCFO) nanocomposite ECs exhibited efficient and stable OER performances with low overpotentials of 359 mV to attain a 10 mA/cm2 current density and a less Tafel slope of 116 mV dec−1, resulting in better durability after 14 h of the i-t test. A strong coupling interaction was found at the interface between the g-C3N4 and the α-Fe2O3/Co3O4 heterostructure, which acts as an effective electron transport channel and exposes more catalytically active sites to explore the outstanding performances for electrocatalysis OER. These results show that a novel approach for the rational coupling of composite heterostructures could be an alternative to using noble metals for sustainable energy-related applications.