Surfactant-assisted hydrothermal synthesis of CoFe2O4 nanostructures and their application in the oxygen evolution reaction

In the present work, nanostructured CoFe2O4 (CFO) was successfully grown on Ni foam via a facile hydrothermal route using CTAB (cetyl trimethyl ammonium bromide), SDS (sodium dodecyl sulfate) and HMTA (hexamethylenetetramine) as surfactants, referred to as CFO-C, CFO-S and CFO-H, respectively. The structural, morphological, and electrochemical properties of the as-synthesized electrocatalysts were systematically studied. The interconnected nano-flakes-like structure of CFO-H facilitates faster reaction kinetics. Therefore, the CFO-H electrocatalyst exhibited higher OER performance with a lower overpotential of 343 mV at a current density of 10 mA cm-2 and a Tafel slope of 88.3 mV dec-1. All the electrocatalysts exhibited exceptional long-term stability for up to 25 h.