IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nat/natcom/v16y2025i1d10.1038_s41467-025-66408-1.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Breathing mode in Nd-CoOx for active and stable proton exchange membrane water electrolysis

Author

Listed:
  • Yong Feng

    (Soochow University, Institute of Functional Nano and Soft Materials Laboratory (FUNSOM), Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Advanced Negative Carbon Technologies)

  • Jianhua Wang

    (Chang’an District, School of Physics and Information Technology, Shaanxi Normal University)

  • Kun Feng

    (Soochow University, Institute of Functional Nano and Soft Materials Laboratory (FUNSOM), Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Advanced Negative Carbon Technologies)

  • Bai Xu

    (Soochow University, Institute of Functional Nano and Soft Materials Laboratory (FUNSOM), Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Advanced Negative Carbon Technologies)

  • Jiabin Xu

    (Soochow University, Institute of Functional Nano and Soft Materials Laboratory (FUNSOM), Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Advanced Negative Carbon Technologies
    University of Western Ontario, Department of Chemistry)

  • Shuo Li

    (Soochow University, Institute of Functional Nano and Soft Materials Laboratory (FUNSOM), Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Advanced Negative Carbon Technologies)

  • Cheng Lu

    (Soochow University, Institute of Functional Nano and Soft Materials Laboratory (FUNSOM), Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Advanced Negative Carbon Technologies)

  • Xing Fan

    (Peking University, Center for Carbon-based Electronics and Key Laboratory for the Physics and Chemistry of Nanodevices, School of Electronics)

  • Haiping Lin

    (Chang’an District, School of Physics and Information Technology, Shaanxi Normal University)

  • Jun Zhong

    (Soochow University, Institute of Functional Nano and Soft Materials Laboratory (FUNSOM), Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Advanced Negative Carbon Technologies)

Abstract

Proton-exchange membrane water electrolysis in acidic solutions holds great promise for advancing the green-hydrogen economy but limited by using precious-metal catalysts. Here, we develop a low-cost Co3O4-based catalyst with oxygen vacancies and Nd-insertion (Nd-CoOx). This catalyst achieves a low overpotential of 317 mV at 10 mA cm−2 for acidic oxygen evolution reaction and remains stable over 800 h. The oxygen vacancies in Nd-CoOx enhance its catalytic activity, while Nd enables the long-term stability through a flexible “breathing mode” during oxygen evolution reaction, as revealed by in-situ methods such as X-ray absorption spectroscopy and Raman spectroscopy. The presence of Nd also improves the catalytic activity with the oxide path mechanism. This favorable strategy can be extended to other lanthanides. When used as the anode, Nd-CoOx delivers good performance in water electrolysis to achieve 200 mA cm−2 at a low cell voltage of 1.69 V with low degradation over 100 h, and can reach 1 and 2 A cm−2 at 1.93 V and 2.12 V, respectively.

Suggested Citation

  • Yong Feng & Jianhua Wang & Kun Feng & Bai Xu & Jiabin Xu & Shuo Li & Cheng Lu & Xing Fan & Haiping Lin & Jun Zhong, 2025. "Breathing mode in Nd-CoOx for active and stable proton exchange membrane water electrolysis," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 16(1), pages 1-12, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:nat:natcom:v:16:y:2025:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-025-66408-1
    DOI: 10.1038/s41467-025-66408-1
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-025-66408-1
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1038/s41467-025-66408-1?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nat:natcom:v:16:y:2025:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-025-66408-1. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nature.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.