Atomic-level tungsten doping triggered low overpotential for electrocatalytic water splitting.

The design of electrocatalysts with lower overpotential is of great significance for water splitting. Herein, cobalt hydroxide carbonate (CCH) has been used as a model to demonstrate the boost of its oxygen evolution reaction (OER) activity by atomic doping of W (W-CCH). The 5 at % W doping reduced the OER overpotential of CCH by 95.

One-Step Synthesis of Monodispersed Mesoporous Carbon Nanospheres for High-Performance Flexible Quasi-Solid-State Micro-Supercapacitors.

Cost-effective synthesis of carbon nanospheres with a desirable mesoporous network for diversified energy storage applications remains a challenge. Herein, a direct templating strategy is developed to fabricate monodispersed N-doped mesoporous carbon nanospheres (NMCSs) with an average particle size of 100 nm, a pore diameter of 4 nm, and a specific area of 1093 m g . Hexadecyl trimethyl ammonium bromide and tetraethyl orthosilicate not only play key roles in the evolution of mesopores but also guide the assembly of phenolic resins to generate carbon nanospheres.

CoP@N,P-Codoped Carbon Nanofiber as a Free-Standing Air Electrode for Zn-Air Batteries: Synergy Effects of CoN Satellite Shells.

Here, a free-standing electrode composed of cobalt phosphides (CoP) supported by cobalt nitride moieties (CoN) and an N,P-codoped porous carbon nanofiber (CNF) in one-step electrospinning of environmentally friendly benign phosphorous precursors is reported. Physiochemical characterization revealed the symbiotic relationship between a CoP crystal and surrounding nanometer-sized CoN moieties embedded in an N,P-codoped porous carbon matrix. CoP@CNF shows high oxygen reduction reaction and oxygen evolution reaction performance owing to the synergistic effect of CoP nanocrystals and the neighboring CoN moieties, which have the optimum binding strength of reactants and facilitate the mass transfer.