Largely Enhanced Oxygen Evolution Performance in a Ferromagnetic Ruddlesden–Popper Phase Cobaltate
The oxygen evolution reaction (OER), as a key half-reaction in water splitting, plays a critical role in various energy conversion and storage systems. Novel high-performance catalysts have always been desirable. In this work, we have fabricated insulating perovskite LaCoO<sub>3</sub> and its corresponding Ruddlesden-Popper (RP) phase La<sub>2</sub>CoO<sub>4</sub> films. At room temperature, the perovskite LaCoO<sub>3</sub> films are nonmagnetic while the RP phase La<sub>2</sub>CoO<sub>4</sub> films are ferromagnetic. The magnetic RP phase La<sub>2</sub>CoO<sub>4</sub> thin films exhibit significantly higher OER activities, with a nearly 70-fold increase in current density compared to the perovskite LaCoO<sub>3</sub>. Theoretical calculations indicate that the ferromagnetic order in the RP phase film substantially lowers the OER overpotential. This study highlights the potential of RP phase magnetic cobaltates for electrochemical water oxidation and magnetocatalysis applications.
Authors
- Peizhe Tang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6345-5809)
- Jinghua Liu
- Ziang Meng
- Yajun Qi (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4043-6824)
- Peixin Qin (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0009-8889-3205)
- Li Liu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4436-8064)
- Xiaorong Zhou (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1152-0071)
- Zhiqi Liu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7538-4879)
- Guojian Zhao (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0004-7868-5094)
- Qinghua Zhang
- Zhiyuan Duan (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0007-0138-7437)
- Hongyu Chen (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5325-9249)
- Xilin Wang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5285-365X)
Institutions
- Chinese Academy of Sciences (CN)
- FZU ‒ Institute of Physics of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic (CZ)
- Hamburg Institut (Germany) (DE)
- Center for Free-Electron Laser Science (DE)
- Max Planck Institute for the Structure and Dynamics of Matter (DE)
- National Laboratory for Superconductivity (CN)
- Beihang University (CN)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Nano Letters
- Published
- 2025-03-17
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.nanolett.5c00061
- Citations
- 5
- Primary Topic
- Electrocatalysts for Energy Conversion
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 1.82
Funders
- National Natural Science Foundation of China
- China Postdoctoral Science Foundation
- National Postdoctoral Program for Innovative Talents
- National Key Research and Development Program of China
- Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities