Oxygen vacancies enriched Co3O4 nanoflowers with single layer porous structures for water splitting

Vacancy enriched electrocatalysts are crucial in enhancing the catalytic activity for oxygen evolution reaction (OER) and hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) through a defect engineering. Herein, oxygen vacancies enriched Co3O4 nanoflowers with single layer porous structures are made to study their catalytic activity toward water splitting. The as-synthesized defects enriched Co3O4 presents flowers-like nanostructures and possesses high specific surface area (84 m(2) g(-1)) with uniform pore size (4 nm). On behalf of the unique morphology and electronic structure, the Co3O4 nanoflowers display enhanced HER and OER performances compared with commercial Co3O4 nanoparticles (similar to 50 nm). In addition, it still presents good catalytic without remarkably decay in potential over 9 days. (c) 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.