Modification of mesoporous titanium dioxide with cobalt oxide electrocatalyst for enhanced oxygen evolution reaction

Water electrolysis is an attractive approach for hydrogen production process and has enormous potential for sustainable clean energy development. This work demonstrates a controllable and reliable method for in-situ decorating of mesoporous titanium dioxide (m-TiO2) support with low loading (0.1- 2.1 wt. %) of cobalt oxide for an efficient electrocatalytic oxygen evolution (OE) in alkaline solution. The ordered (m-TiO2) support modified with cobalt oxide and having uniform mesopores (3-5 nm pore diameter) and a crystalline framework is successfully prepared via soft-template strategy using Pluronic ® F127 triblock copolymer as a mesopores template. Compared to the pure TiO2 mesoporous, the entire Co oxide doped (Co(x)/m-TiO2) catalysts exhibit greatly enhanced OE activity in spite of the low loading of Co oxide electrocatalyst. The Co(2.1)/m-TiO2 catalyst with 2.1 wt. % of Co oxide was the OER most active robust electrocatalyst with a mass activity of 31.5 mA cm 2 mg −1 , the specific