Surface reconstruction of RuO2/Co3O4 amorphous-crystalline heterointerface for efficient overall water splitting

Abstract

The rational construction of amorphous-crystalline heterointerface can effectively improve the activity and stability of hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) and oxygen evolution reaction (OER). Herein, RuO2/Co3O4 (RCO) amorphous-crystalline heterointerface is prepared via oxidation method. The optimal RCO-10 exhibits low overpotentials of 57 and 231 mV for HER and OER at 10 mA cm−2, respectively. Experimental characterization and density functional theory (DFT) results show that the optimized electronic structure and surface reconstruction endow RCO-10 with excellent catalytic activity. DFT results show that electrons transfer from RuO2 to Co3O4 through the amorphous-crystalline heterointerface, achieving electron redistribution and moving the d-band center upward, which optimizes the adsorption free energy of the hydrogen reaction intermediate. Moreover, the reconstructed Ru/Co(OH)2 during the HER process has low hydrogen adsorption free energy to enhance HER activity. The reconstructed RuO2/CoOOH during the OER process has a low energy barrier for the elementary reaction (O*→*OOH) to enhance OER activity. Furthermore, RCO-10 requires only 1.50 V to drive 10 mA cm−2 and maintains stability over 200 h for overall water splitting. Meanwhile, RCO-10 displays stability for 48 h in alkaline solutions containing 0.5 M NaCl. The amorphous-crystalline heterointerface may bring new breakthroughs in the design of efficient and stable catalysts.