Full‐Spectrum Light‐Harvesting Solar Thermal Electrocatalyst Boosts Oxygen Evolution
Mingxia Xu, Qiming Bing, Yunchuan Tu, Yunlong Zhang, Mo Zhang, Yafeng Cai, Jinlei Li, Xianguang Meng, Jia Zhu, Liang Yu, Dehui Deng
Abstract
Enabling high-efficiency solar thermal conversion (STC) at catalytic active site is critical but challenging for harnessing solar energy to boost catalytic reactions. Herein, we report the direct integration of full-spectrum STC and high electrocatalytic oxygen evolution activity by fabricating a hierarchical nanocage architecture composed of graphene-encapsulated CoNi nanoparticle. This catalyst exhibits a near-complete 98 % absorptivity of solar spectrum and a high STC efficiency of 97 %, which is superior than previous solar thermal catalytic materials. It delivers a remarkable potential decrease of over 240 mV at various current densities for electrocatalytic oxygen evolution under solar illumination, which is practically unachievable via traditionally heating the system. The high-efficiency STC is enabled by a synergy between the regulated electronic structure of graphene via CoNi-carbon interaction and the multiple absorption of lights by the light-trapping nanocage. Theoretical calculations suggest that high temperature-induced vibrational free energy gain promotes the potential-limiting *O to *OOH step, which decreases the overpotential for oxygen evolution.