Design of boron-based ternary W3CoB3 electrocatalyst for the improved HER and OER performances

With the scale-up of global environmental issues and increased emission of greenhouse gases, hydrogen is being considered an alternative renewable energy resource for the future. Herein, a boron-based ternary W3CoB3 electrode is designed for the water splitting electro-catalyzer for both the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) and oxygen evolution reaction (OER). The optimum W3CoB3 electrode demonstrates low overpotentials of 84 and 271 mV for the HER and OER at 60 mA/cm2 in 1 M KOH in a three-electrode system. Then, the W3CoB3 electrode demonstrates 1.52 V in 1 M KOH by a two-electrode configuration, which ranks the W3CoB3 electrode as one of the best transition-metal-based compound electrodes for the water splitting. In addition, the W3CoB3 electrode demonstrates a comparable water splitting performance to the standard benchmark electrodes of Pt/C || RuO2 in the 1M PBS in the two-electrode system, which indicates that the W3CoB3 electrode can demonstrate comparable performance in the natural water. The incorporation of boron atoms promotes the electron supply to the transition-metal atoms, which tunes the reaction kinetics to acquire the enhanced electrocatalytic performance.