Pre-electrodeposited copper-induced dual synergism in cobalt oxyhydroxide for efficient glycerol electrooxidation coupled with hydrogen evolution

The pre-deposited Cu would regulate the growth of Co(OH) 2 precursors for CoOOH. • Pre-deposited Cu in-situ incorporation and reconstruction to form CoOOH/Cu/NF. • CoOOH/Cu/NF delivers 97.2% formate selectivity and 90.1% FE at 1.55 V vs. RHE. • GOR||HER saves 252 mV compared to conventional OER||HER at 10 mA cm -2 . • CoOOH/Cu/NF demonstrates exceptional stability during GOR coupled with HER process. Developing robust electrocatalysts for glycerol oxidation reaction (GOR) coupled with hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) offers a promising pathway for energy-efficient hydrogen production. Herein, we report a pre-electrodeposited copper-induced strategy to fabricate Cu-incorporated cobalt oxyhydroxide on nickel foam (CoOOH/Cu/NF) through two-step electrodeposition followed by in-situ electrochemical activation. Mechanistic investigations revealed that the pre-electrodeposited Cu species could not only regulate the growth of Co(OH) 2 precursors to form more ordered and open nanosheet network but also induce in-situ Cu incorporation into CoOOH to modulate the electronic structure, thereby enriching active Co 3+ species and optimizing glycerol adsorption. Benefiting from this morphological-electronic dual synergism, CoOOH/Cu/NF exhibited exceptional GOR performance with ultralow potentials of 1.272 and 1.408 V vs. RHE at 10 and 100 mA cm -2 , respectively. At 1.55 V vs. RHE, CoOOH/Cu/NF achieved 90.1% Faradaic efficiency and 97.2% selectivity toward formic acid. Furthermore, the coupled GOR||HER system delivered 10 mA cm -2 at only 1.55 V cell voltage, which was 252 mV lower than conventional water electrolysis, with excellent durability exceeding 70 h. This work provides a facile pre-deposited Cu method for designing high-efficiency electrocatalysts for biomass upgrading and energy-efficient hydrogen production. Download: Download high-res image (423KB) Download: Download full-size image