Plasma enhanced atomic-layer-deposited nickel oxide on Co3O4 arrays as highly active electrocatalyst for oxygen evolution reaction

• Published in: Journal of power sources 2021-01, Vol.481, p.228925, Article 228925
• Main Authors: Yang, Guoyong, Xiang, Hong, Rauf, Muhammad, Mi, Hongwei, Ren, Xiangzhong, Zhang, Peixin, Li, Yongliang
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Electrocatalyst; Oxygen evolution reaction; Plasma enhanced atomic layer deposition; Water splitting
• ISSN: 0378-7753; 1873-2755
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jpowsour.2020.228925

Energy storage technologies are developed over the past decades, such as metal-air batteries. The large-scale application of these devices is finite due to slow kinetics of the oxygen evolution reaction (OER). In order to solve this issue, plasma enhanced atomic layer deposition (PE-ALD) is used to synthesize high performance nano-oxide (NiOx@Co3O4/CC) electrocatalyst for OER applications. Herein, the cobalt oxide (Co3O4) nanowire arrays are grown on oxygen plasma-treated carbon-cloth (CC) and then a thin layer (~1.2 nm) of nickel oxide (NiOx) is deposited on the Co3O4/CC through PE-ALD method. The electrocatalyst of two transition metal oxides plays a leading role in improving the OER performance and stability. The overpotential for OER of NiOx@Co3O4/CC electrocatalyst is 360 mV at 10 mA cm−2, which is much lower than that of Co3O4/CC (420 mV) and comparable to commercial RuO2 (350 mV) electrocatalyst. Moreover, the stability of NiOx@Co3O4/CC electrocatalyst is also improved, which only 8.85% of the initial current is loss after 40,000 s. It is demonstrated that PE-ALD synthesis method provides a facile approach to fabricate highly efficient nano-oxide electrocatalysts for OER in energy storage devices. •NiOx@Co3O4/CC is synthesized through plasma-enhanced atomic layer deposition.•The OER performance of NiOx@Co3O4/CC is comparable to commercial RuO2.•NiOx@Co3O4/CC maintains about 92% of the initial current after testing for 40,000 s.