Synergistic effect of trimetallic-based CuxMox/Co1−xO nanoparticles/reduced graphene oxide as high efficient electrocatalyst for oxygen evolution reaction

The development of an efficient electrocatalyst for the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) is urgently required for sustainable renewable energy production. Owing to the increase in chemical complexity, multimetallic catalysts provide the flexibility to alter their electronic structure to attain superior intrinsic catalytic activity via synergistic effects. In this study, trimetallic CuxMox/Co1−xO nanoparticles grown on reduced graphene oxide (RGO) as a catalyst for the OER were fabricated via a facile solution-hydrothermal synthesis assisted by a calcination process. In the fabricated CuxMox/Co1−xO [email protected] hybrid catalyst, the RGO sheet acted as a conductive network to promote electron transfer, thus increasing the electrocatalytic activity. Meanwhile, additional active sites as bridged sites from the Cu and Mo dopants improved the catalytic activity, resulting in outstanding electrochemical activity for the OER. The optimized Cu0.19Mo0.19/Co0.62O [email protected] catalyst exhibited a low overpotential of 250 mV and a small Tafel slope of 61 mV/dec at a current density of 10 mA cm−2 and an overpotential of 550 mV at a high current density of 150 mA cm−2. This study provides a novel strategy for the development of efficient OER electrocatalysts for large-scale applications.