Construction of two-dimensional CoPS3@defective N-doped carbon composites for enhanced oxygen evolution reaction

The rational design of highly efficient, economical and environment-friendly electrocatalysts is currently an important goal of research on renewable energy conversion and storage. Herein, a facile metod was developed to construct two-dimensional composites, which consist of exfoliated CoPS3 nanosheets grafted onto defective N-doped carbon (DNC) derived from spent tea leaves. The CoPS3@DNC composites demonstrate remarkable oxygen evolution reaction (OER) performance in an alkaline medium, with an overpotential of 297 mV at 10 mA cm− 2 and a small Tafel slope of 51.8 mV dec−1, which is better than that of commercial IrO2 catalysts. Our experimental evidence reveals that the enhanced OER performance of this hybrid catalyst can be attributed to the interfacial effect of exfoliated CoPS3 and N-doped carbon defects (electron transfer from the CoPS3 layer to DNC). This work suggests a promising interface engineering technique for developing highly efficient and non-precious OER catalysts based on layered transition-metal trichalcogenides.