Nitrogen-doped-carbon coated FeCo modified CoFe2O4 nanoflowers heterostructure with robust stability for oxygen evolution and urea oxidation

Abstract

The exploitation of catalysts with low-cost and superior oxygen evolution reaction (OER) and urea oxidation reaction (UOR) performance is important to expand the application of water splitting. Herein, the FeCo/CoFe2O4 nanoflowers are successfully embedded in N-doped graphitic carbon (NGC) by hydrothermal method and subsequently annealing process (FeCo/CoFe2O4@NGC). It only needs 1.47 V and 1.32 V for OER and UOR to produce a current density of 10 mA cm−2. Besides, it can work continuously for 100 h at different current densities (10; ∼ 1000 mA cm−2), displays outstanding stability, which is mainly ascribed to the N-doped carbon encapsulated FeCo modified CoFe2O4 heterostructure and porous structure. This study thus provides a simple synthesis method to design and manufacture low-cost and high-performance catalytic materials for OER and UOR, and promotes the industrial application of water splitting.