PPy enhanced Fe, W Co-doped Co3O4 free-standing electrode for highly-efficient oxygen evolution reaction

Electrochemical catalysts for the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) play a key role in highly-efficient water splitting and many other important energy conversion applications. Transition metal oxides are promising OER catalysts. In this work, Fe, W co-doped Co3O4 was grown on carbon fiber cloth (FeWCo3O4/CFC) and polypyrrole (PPy)/carbon fiber cloth (FeWCo3O4/PPy/CFC) through a simple anodic electrodeposition method. The FeWCo3O4/CFC free-standing electrode reached an electrocatalytic current density of 30.7mAcm(-2) at 400mV overpotential with a Tafel slope of 177mVdec(-1). The PPy can serve as conductive binder and improve the contact between FeWCo3O4 and substrate. The resulting FeWCo3O4/PPy/CFC free-standing electrode reached an electrocatalytic current density of 36.2mAcm(-2) at 400mV overpotential with a Tafel slope of 163mVdec(-1). The FeWCo3O4/PPy/CFC free-standing electrode shows low electric resistance and is able to catalyze OER at 10mAcm(-2) for 12h without obvious decay under the optimized electrodeposition conditions. This study provides new insight for design and synthesis of highly-efficient OER catalyst. [GRAPHICS]