Crystal Facet Modulation via Chiral Interactions: Unlocking the Potential of Co 3 O 4 Nanoparticles for Electrochemical Natural Seawater Splitting

Efficient and cost-effective oxygen evolution reaction (OER) electrocatalysts are central to natural seawater electrolysis. Herein, a chirality engineering strategy was proposed for orientational exposure of highly active (111) crystal facets of nitrogen-doped Co3O4 to improve the efficiency and stability of the OER for water electrolysis. Comprehensive characterizations and theoretical calculations confirm that the chiral induction and N doping synergistically regulate the electronic structure, coordination environment, and crystal orientation of the Co3O4 catalyst, exhibiting favorable OER performance in 1.0 M KOH, delivering a low overpotential of 278 mV at 10 mA cm−2 and maintaining stability for 500 h at an industrial-scale current density of 500 mA cm−2. In natural seawater electrolyte, it outperforms achiral N-DL-Co3O4 and commercial RuO2, showing a reduced overpotential, faster reaction kinetics, and enhanced chloride resistance. Molecular dynamics, density functional theory, and TOF-SIMS reveal that the orientational exposed (111) facets induced by chiral induction enable enhanced OH− adsorption and reduced Cl− adsorption and the adsorbed OH molecules occupy the active sites and form a dense barrier to prevent chloride ion corrosion. This study presents a viable strategy for chirality engineering of non-noble metals by orientational exposure of highly active crystal facets with chloride-resistant properties, providing a practical approach to develop cost-effective electrocatalysts for natural seawater electrolysis.