Unveiling the kinetics of oxygen evolution reaction in defect-engineered B/P-incorporated cobalt-oxide electrocatalysts

Defect-rich transition-metal oxide electrocatalysts hold great promise for alkaline water electrolysis due to their enhanced activity and stability. This study presents a new strategy that significantly improve the OER activity of Co-oxide nanosheets through incorporation of B and P (B/P-CoO NS), eventually leading to abundant surface defects and oxygen vacancies. The B/P-CoO NS demonstrates low overpotential of 220 mV to achieve 10 mA/cm. The electrochemical and kinetic studies coupled with conventional morphological and structural characterizations, reveal that various crystalline defects like vacancies, dislocations, twin planes, and grain boundaries play crucial roles in promoting the OH ion adsorption, the formation of intermediates, and the desorption of oxygen molecules. The industrial viability of the developed electrocatalyst is substantiated through assessments under harsh industrial conditions of 6 M KOH at 60 °C in a zero-gap single-cell alkaline electrolyzer which achieves 1 A/cm at 1.95 V. Chronoamperometry tests (100 h) highlight remarkable robustness of the electrocatalyst. This work establishes a new strategy to fabricate defect-rich OER electrocatalysts, setting a precedent to achieve better OER rates with non-noble materials.