Tailorable carbon cloth electrodes covered with heterostructured Co/CoO/CoN interfaces for scalable electrocatalytic overall water splitting

Multicomponent heterostructures used for enhanced OER and HER catalytic activity have been extensively explored, but the facile introduction and generation of active centers for multicomponent heterostructure catalysts remains challenging. Herein, a Co/CoO/CoN heterostructure, dispersed in hierarchical porous N-doped graphitic carbon on carbon cloth (Co/CoO/CoN/CC), is prepared using a facile strategy. The active centers in catalytic process are investigated using DFT calculations. Benefiting from the strong interaction and electronic structure reconfiguration between interfaces, the optimized catalyst, Co/CoO/CoN/CC-2 exhibits remarkable catalytic activity for HER and OER with overpotentials of 73 and 147 mV at 10 mA cm−2, respectively, whose combination leads to the overall water splitting in alkaline media driven by a single commercial dry cell. Because the material is flexible and self-supporting, its size and shape are tailored for specific requirements. A pair of electrodes with dimensions of 4.5 × 1.5 cm−2, performed well in overall splitting water at high current density. This work highlights a new approach for developing commercially applicable water splitting catalysts.