PVP-assisted synthesis of porous CoO prisms with enhanced electrocatalytic oxygen evolution properties

Hollow metal oxide materials with nanometer-to-micrometer dimensions have attracted tremendous attention because of their potential applications in energy conversion and storage systems. Numerous efforts have been focused on developing versatile methods for the rational synthesis of various hollow structures to act as efficient water oxidation catalysts. In this work, a unique porous and hollow CoO tetragonal prism-like structure has been successfully synthesized via a facile and efficient co-precipitation method with polyvinylpyrrolidone(PVP K30) followed by a heating treatment of the resulted precipitates.The as-prepared porous and hollow CoO microprisms displayed a high activity and stability for water oxidation in 1.0 M KOH solution. To reach a current density of 10 m A/cm~2, a low overpotential of 280 m V is required. The remarkable activity can be attributed to the synergistic effect between two different but well-distributed CoO crystalline phases, uniform particle size, ameliorative crystallinity, high surface area and the low mass transfer resistance benefitted from the unique porous structure.