Architecting a Mesoporous N-Doped Graphitic Carbon Framework Encapsulating CoTe2 as an Efficient Oxygen Evolution Electrocatalyst.

To improve the efficiency of cobalt-based catalysts for water electrolysis, tremendous efforts have been dedicated to tuning the composition, morphology, size, and structure of the materials. We report here a facile preparation of orthorhombic CoTe2 nanocrystals embedded in an N-doped graphitic carbon matrix to form a 3D architecture with a size of ∼500 nm and abundant mesopores of ∼4 nm for the oxygen evolution reaction (OER). The hybrid electrocatalyst delivers a small overpotential of 300 mV at 10 mA cm-2, which is much lower than that for pristine CoTe2 powder. After cycling for 2000 cycles or driving continual OER for 20 h, only a slight loss is observed. The mesoporous 3D architecture and the strong interaction between N-doped graphitic carbon and CoTe2 are responsible for the enhancement of the electrocatalytic performance.