TY - JOUR A1 - Wahl, S. A1 - El-Refaei, S. M. A1 - de Oliveira Guilherme Buzanich, Ana A1 - Amsalem, P. A1 - Lee, K.-S. A1 - Koch, N. A1 - Doublet, M.-L. A1 - Pinna, N. T1 - Zn0.35Co0.65O – A Stable and highly active oxygen evolution catalyst formed by zinc leaching and tetrahedral coordinated cobalt in wurtzite structure N2 - To arrive to sustainable hydrogen-based energy solutions, the understanding of water-splitting catalysts plays the most crucial role. Herein, state-of-the-art hypotheses are combined on electrocatalytic active metal sites toward the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) to develop a highly efficient catalyst based on Earth-abundant cobalt and zinc oxides. The precursor catalyst Zn0.35Co0.65O is synthesized via a fast microwaveassisted approach at low temperatures. Subsequently, it transforms in situ from the wurtzite structure to the layered γ-Co(O)OH, while most of its zinc leaches out. This material shows outstanding catalytic Performance and stability toward the OER in 1 m KOH (overpotential at 10 mA cm−2 ηinitial = 306 mV, η98 h = 318 mV). By comparing the electrochemical results and ex situ analyses to today’s literature, clear structureactivity correlations are able to be identified. The findings suggest that coordinately unsaturated cobalt octahedra on the surface are indeed the active centers for the OER. KW - Oxygen Evolution Catalyst KW - XAFS KW - Oxygen evolution reaction (OER) KW - Cobalt and zinc oxides PY - 2019 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1002/aenm.201900328 SN - 1614-6832 SN - 1614-6840 VL - 9 IS - 20 SP - 1900328,1 EP - 10 PB - WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA CY - Weinheim AN - OPUS4-48200 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Wahl, S. A1 - El-Refaei, S. M. A1 - Amsalem, P. A1 - de Oliveira Guilherme Buzanich, Ana A1 - Koch, N. A1 - Pinna, N. T1 - Operando diffuse reflectance UV-vis spectroelectrochemistry for investigating oxygen evolution electrocatalysts N2 - The characterization of the active structure of water-splitting catalysts is crucial to evolve to a sustainable energy future based on hydrogen. Such information can only be obtained by operando methods. We present a diffuse reflectance UV-vis (DRUV) spectroelectrochemical study that allows tracking the changes of solid oxygen evolution catalysts under working conditions. The versatility of our approach is demonstrated on two cobalt-containing catalysts, Zn0.35Co0.65O and CoAl2O4. The changes the catalysts undergo during the oxygen evolution reaction can be tracked by probing the electronic structure using UV-vis spectroscopy. These findings are compared to ex situ analyses, which support the assignments of the structures stabilized under different potentials. Thus, structure–activity correlations can be proposed, and deeper insights into the catalytically active structures can be obtained. KW - EXAFS PY - 2020 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1039/c9cy02329a VL - 10 IS - 2 SP - 517 EP - 528 PB - Royal Society of Chemistry AN - OPUS4-50468 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER -