Interfacial electronic modulation of CoP-CoO p-p type heterojunction for enhancing oxygen evolution reaction.

Abstract Heterojunction can effectively improve oxygen evolution reaction (OER) activity by regulating the interfacial electronic structure of catalysts. However, p-p type heterojunction OER catalysts have obtained less attention, and the corresponding catalytic mechanisms are unclear either. Herein, the self-supported CoP-CoO p-p type heterojunction arrays are fabricated on carbon cloth substrate (CoP-CoO/CC). Band structure analysis shows that the formation of p-p heterojunction can drive the electrons from CoO to flow into CoP. This electronic modulation contributes to positively charged regions on the CoO and enhances the OH− adsorption during OER, proven by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and methanol molecular detection, respectively. As a result, the CoP-CoO/CC electrode only needs 210 mV overpotential to drive a current density of 10 mA cm−2 in an alkaline medium, superior to the most reported OER catalysts. Additionally, the CoP-CoO/CC also exhibits an ideal hydrogen evolution reaction response, and a water splitting system has been successfully constructed which can drive a 10 mA cm−2 within 1.65 V. This study supplies insight for catalytic origins p-p type heterojunctions OER catalyst, which provides a reference value for the efficient and reasonable design of heterojunction catalysts.