Recently, Professor Shao Qi of the College of Chemistry, Chemical Engineering and Materials Science at Soochow University and collaborators published a research paper in Nature.
Conventional spinel cobalt oxide (Co3O4) is a representative non-noble metal catalyst for the acidic oxygen evolution reaction (OER), but its tetrahedral coordination sites are catalytically inactive. Using a vacuum-mediated molten-alkali mechanochemical method, the team synthesized a new trigonal-phase two-dimensional (2D) layered Co₃O₄ (Tri-Co3O4). This material consists of three closely stacked sub-layers with edge-sharing octahedral coordination, which effectively optimizes the adsorption of reaction intermediates and suppresses cobalt dissolution, significantly enhancing both the activity and stability of the catalyst.
This work marks a key breakthrough in the development of 2D Co3O4 materials, and provides a new perspective on the structural design of catalysts for acidic water electrolysis.
Access the paper online at:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-026-10851-7
