Spontaneous Formation of Ultrasmall Noble Metal Nanoparticles on Cobalt-Based Layered Double Hydroxide for Electrochemical and Environmental Catalysis

Abstract

Supported noble metal nanoparticles (NMNPs) are appealing for energy and environment catalysis. To facilitate the loading of NMNPs, in situ reduction of Mⁿ⁺ on the support with extra reductants/surfactants is adopted, but typically results in aggregated NMNPs with uneven size distributions or blocked active sites of the NMNPs. Herein, the use of cobalt layered double hydroxide (Co-LDH) is proposed as both support and reductant for the preparation of supported NMNPs with ultrasmall sizes and even distributions. The resultant Co-LDH-supported NMNPs exhibit excellent catalytic performance and stability. For example, Ir/Co-LDH displays a low overpotential of 188 mV (10 mA cm^-2 ) for electrocatalytic oxygen evolution reaction and a long-term stability over 100 h (100 mA cm^-2 ) in overall water splitting. Ru/Co-LDH can achieve a 4-nitrophenol reduction with high rate of 0.36 min^-1 and S^2- detection with low limit of detection (LOD) of 0.34 µm. Overall, this work provides a green and effective strategy to fabricate supported NMNPs with greatly improved catalytic performances.

Keywords: 4-nitrophenol reduction; cobalt layer double hydroxide; overall water splitting; spontaneous reduction; supported noble metal nanoparticles.