Flower-like CoP coated NiMoO4 nanorods as self- supported core-shell heterojunction electrode can facilitate oxygen evolution reaction at a low overpotential

Transition metal phosphates, as the most promising catalyst for oxygen evolution reac-tion (OER), have attracted much attention in recent years. In this work, CoP nanosheets are elec-trodeposited on NiMoO4 nanorods to form a self-supported core-shell structure electrode with CoP-NiMoO4 heterojunctions. Density functional theory (DFT) calculations demonstrate CoP-12@NiMoO4/NF electrode can reduce reaction energy barrier of rate-determining step (RDS) from 8.743 eV to 2.519 eV. In 1 M KOH, the electrode shows a low overpotential of 165 mV (10 mA cm -2), a low Tafel slope of 45 mV dec �1 and the significant stability. Compared with other non-noble metal OER electrocatalysts, the prepared CoP-12@NiMoO4/NF electrode exhibits bet-ter electrocatalytic activity, which can provide a new choice of electrocatalysts for future practical applications.& COPY; 2023 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of King Saud University. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).