Mo, N co-doped cobalt hydroxide nanosheets for highly selective methanol-to-formate electrocatalytic conversion

The development of low-cost electrocatalysts to selectively oxidize methanol to formate to replace the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) will be beneficial to reduce the overpotential of electrocatalytic water splitting. Herein, we propose a one-step low-temperature strategy for anion and cation co-doping to reconstruct ZIF-67 into two-dimensional Mo, N co-doped Co(OH)2 [N-CoMo(OH)x]. The N-CoMo(OH)x only needs 1.36 V to achieve 10 mA cm−2 for methanol oxidation reaction (MOR). Meanwhile, N-CoMo(OH)x exhibits good stability at 100 mA cm−2 with Faraday efficiency of 98.1 %. The Mo6+ and N co-doping synergistically enhance the conductivity and dehydrogenation energy barrier of OCH2 intermediate species, leading to good catalytic performance. This work thus provides a strategy for designing anion and cation co-doped catalysts for methanol upgrading.