Phosphorus-doped cobaltous oxide core@shell microspheres with enhanced performances in energy conversion and storage

Nowaday, developing sustainable energy storage and conversion techniques is of great desire to alleviate energy demands and environmental pollution, in which the core issue is to develop cost-efficient, high-performance and sustained electrode materials. Herein, we proposed a cost-efficient strategy by integrating solvothermal technique, calcination and up-stream gas method to fabricate bifunctional phosphorus-doped CoO core@shell microspheres, which perform great in both energy conversion (hydrogen evolution reaction) and energy storage (supercapacitor). Due to core@shell structure and phosphorus doping, the resulted P-CoO core@shell structures possess high specific surface area, enhanced conductivity and additional active sites. As a result, the P-CoO exhibits excellent electrocatalytic HER performances in alkaline media with a low overpotential (143 mV at 10 mA/cm(2)) and long-term stability (more than 24 h). Meanwhile, the prepared material presents greatly improved supercapacitive properties with ultrahigh capacitance (1845 F/g at 1 A/g) and excellent cycling stability. Therefore, this strategy provides a new contribution to develop multifunctional electrochemical-active materials for energy conversion and storage.

Automated summary

The study presents a cost-efficient strategy for fabricating bifunctional phosphorus-doped CoO core@shell microspheres using solvothermal technique, calcination and up-stream gas method, which show great performance in both energy conversion and storage. The resulting P-CoO core@shell structures possess high specific surface area, enhanced conductivity and additional active sites, demonstrating excellent electrocatalytic performances for hydrogen evolution reaction and improved supercapacitive properties for energy storage. This strategy provides a new contribution to develop multifunctional electrochemical-active materials for energy conversion and storage.