Interaction of Borophene and Cobalt Phosphate for Electrocatalytic Urea Oxidation Reaction

Abstract To generate hydrogen sustainably, it is crucial to substitute the kinetically slower oxygen evolution reaction (OER) with urea oxidation reaction (UOR) at the anode. This necessitates the designing of highly active and stable Co‐based electrocatalysts for UOR. Herein, the influence of electronic modulation in the synthesized borophene–cobalt phosphate catalyst (B@CP) for generating active sites for UOR was studied. The addition of urea to the alkaline electrolyte as a sacrificial agent significantly reduced the potential required by B@CP for UOR compared to OER for attaining a fixed current density. B@CP achieved the current densities of 10 mA cm −2 and 100 mA cm −2 at potentials of 1.31 V and 1.40 V, respectively. Adding borophene to the catalyst also modified its morphology and charge transport, enhancing the UOR kinetics, reducing the charge transfer resistance, and exposing more electrochemically active sites. Moreover, B@CP displayed long‐term UOR stability for 50 h. This work will encourage the development of innovative strategies for tuning the properties of different transition metal‐based electrocatalysts via borophene for various energy conversion applications.