The CoMo-LDH ultrathin nanosheet as a highly active and bifunctional electrocatalyst for overall water splitting

Abstract

The development of inexpensive and bifunctional electrocatalysts based on earth-abundant elements for electrocatalytic water splitting, including the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) and oxygen evolution reaction (OER), is of great significance. Herein, a new type of CoMo-LDH ultrathin nanosheet was synthesized as a bifunctional electrocatalyst with both OER and HER activity for full water splitting. Benefiting from the ultrathin structure and the tuned electronic structure by the doping of Mo⁶⁺, the catalyst exhibits superior OER performance with an overpotential of 290 mV to deliver a current density of 10 mA cm⁻². When acting as a HER catalyst, the catalyst shows a low overpotential of 115 mV achieving a current density of 10 mA cm⁻². Furthermore, the catalyst also shows bifunctional catalytic activity with a voltage of 1.63 V at 10 mA cm⁻² and exhibits excellent stability for 30 h when used in the full water splitting cell. Thus, the novel CoMo-LDH ultrathin nanosheet provides a guideline for the future design of highly active and bifunctional materials for water splitting.