Abstract
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The development of low cost and durable electrocatalysts for the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) for water splitting remains a great challenge. Here, we developed strongly coupled hybrid nanowires (NWs) of anion (Cl- and CO-) doped cobalt hydroxide coated with nanosheets of graphitic carbon nitride (Co(OH)2@g-C3N4) through an in situ hydrothermal method. With 5% g-C3N4 added in the synthesis, we obtained perfectly coated Co(OH)2 by g-C3N4 nanosheets with an overall diameter of ���110 nm and a coating layer of ���10 nm. The structural and compositional analyses confirm the strong interaction between g-C3N4 and Co(OH)2 that makes the hybrid highly effective for the OER. As a result Co(OH)2@g-C3N4 NWs exhibit an excellent over-potential of 0.32 V at 10 mA cm-2 as well as extraordinary stability, which are better than those of the state-of-the-art noble metals (IrO2 and RuO2) and most reported Co- and C3N4-based electrocatalysts although both Co(OH)2 and g-C3N4 separately display very fair performance. Furthermore, a combination of Co(OH)2@g-C3N4 and Pt/C delivers a current density of 80 mA cm-2 at 1.9 V for overall water splitting.