Gold nanodot assembly within a cobalt chalcogenide nanoshell: Promotion of electrocatalytic activity

Abstract

The assembly of functional nanoparticles within materials with unique architectures can improve the interfacial surfaces, defects, and active sites, which are key factors for the designing novel nanocatalysts. Nano metal-organic framework (NMOF) can be employed to fabricate nanodots-confined nanohybrids for use in electrocatalytic processes. Herein, we report a controlled synthesis of gold nanodot assembly within cobalt chalcogenide nanoshell (dots-in-shell Au/CoxSy nanohybrids). A cobalt-based NMOF (the cobalt-based zeolite imidazole framework, ZIF-67) is used as a versatile sacrificial template to yield dots-in-shell Au/CoxSy nanohybrids. Due to the synergistic effect of the well-dispersed Au nanodots and the thin CoxSy nanoshell, the obtained dots-in-shell Au/CoxSy nanohybrids exhibit enhanced performance for the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) with low overpotential values at a current density of 10 mA cm(-2) and a small Tafel slope (343 mV and 62 mV dec(-1), respectively).