Regulation of interfacial microenvironment by introducing Co atoms into MoSP compounds with enhanced catalytic activity for overall water splitting

Abstract

Modulation of the interfacial microenvironment has proven to be an effective method to significantly improve the catalytic performance of electrocatalysts. Herein, a highly efficient electrocatalyst was successfully synthesized through the strategy of modulating the interfacial microenvironment by incorporating Co atoms into the MoSP composites (Co-MoSP). Particularly, the optimized Co-MoSP composites exhibited excellent electrocatalytic activities with the overpotentials of 282 and 71 mV for oxygen and hydrogen evolution reactions at 10 mA cm^-2 and a small voltage of 1.51 V for overall water splitting at 10 mA cm^-2 in 1 M KOH. Experimental data demonstrated that the incorporation of Co atoms into MoSP composites can greatly modulate the interfacial microenvironment and enhance the catalytic activity of the catalysts. This report showed that the use of the metal atom to regulate the interfacial microenvironment of the catalysts is a potential method to significantly boost the catalytic performance of the electrocatalysts.