Ferroelectric modulation of CuCoO nanorods for controllable alkaline water electrolysis.

As a technology for emerging environmental applications, water electrolysis is a significant approach for producing clean hydrogen energy. In this work, we used an efficacious piezoelectric method to significantly improve the catalytic water splitting activity without affecting the morphology as well as the components by altering the bulk charge separation state inside the material. The obtained CuCoO nanorods were treated under a corona polarization apparatus, which significantly enhanced ferroelectricity relative to that before the polarization increasing the physical charge separation and piezoelectric potential energy, enhancing the green hydrogen production. The polarized CuCoO nanorods exhibit excellent water electrolysis performance under alkaline conditions, with hydrogen evolution overpotential of 78.7 mV and oxygen evolution overpotential of 299 mV at 10 mA cm, which is much better than that of unpolarized CuCoO nanorods. Moreover, the Tafel slopes of polarized CuCoO nanorods are 86.9 mV dec in the HER process and 73.1 mV dec in the OER process, which are much lower than commercial catalysts of Pt/C (88.0 mV dec for HER) or RuO (78.5 mV dec for OER), proving faster kinetic on polarized CuCoO nanorods due to their higher electroconductibility and intrinsic activity. In particular, polarized CuCoO nanorods are identified as promising catalysts for water electrolysis with robust stability, offering outstanding catalytic performance and excellent energy efficiency.