Enhancing oxygen evolution efficiency of multiferroic oxides by spintronic and ferroelectric polarization regulation.

Regulating the electronic structure of catalysts is the most efficient strategy yet, despite its limitations, to improve their oxygen evolution efficiency. Instead of only adjusting the electronic structure, here we utilize ferroelectric polarization to accelerate the oxygen evolution reaction as well. This is demonstrated on a multiferroic layered perovskite Bi5CoTi3O15 with in-situ grown BiCoO3. Thanks to the superimposed effects of electronic regulation and ferroelectric polarization, the as-prepared multiferroic electrocatalysts are more efficient than the benchmark IrO2 (with a final 320 mV overpotential at the current density of 10 mA cm-2 and a 34 mV dec-1 Tafel slope). This work not only demonstrates a low-cost and high-efficient OER electrocatalyst, but also provides a strategic design for multi-component electrocatalytic material systems by consideration of both spin and polarization degrees of freedom.