Cerium Oxide-Induced Synchronous Lattice Oxygen Activation and Accelerated Deprotonation Kinetics in Cobalt (oxy)Hydroxide for Robust Water Oxidation

Theoretically, triggering the lattice oxygen mechanism (LOM) of the catalysts during the alkaline oxygen evolution reaction (OER) can effectively break through the thermodynamic limitations, while following this path, the rate of simultaneous deprotonation also determines the overall kinetics. A cerium oxide units-modified cobalt (oxy)hydroxide nanocomposite of CeO₂-CoOOH/NF is proposed, where the Ce(4f)-O(2p)-Co (3d) coupling with sites interaction mediates the Co─O Mott–Hubbard splitting state to trigger efficient LOM. Meanwhile, the 4f orbital electron-rich state near the Fermi level is favorable for proceeding the electron-involved deprotonation behavior. All these empower CeO₂-CoOOH/NF with considerable OER activity, which delivers an overpotential of 249 mV at 10 mA cm⁻², and coupling with commercial Pt/C in anion exchange membrane water electrolyze (AEMWE) to realize energy-saving hydrogen production. This work is instructive for the design of high-performance OER catalysts through controlling the electron orbitals hybridization state of the catalysts to synchronously accelerate the kinetics of each link in OER.