Boosting the electrocatalytic activity of lanthanum cobaltite ceramic through Zn doping for the oxygen evolution reaction

The development of economical and highly efficient electrocatalysts is crucial for the oxygen evolution reaction in water electrolysis, which is associated with producing clean and sustainable hydrogen fuel. For this purpose, we successfully elaborated a new series of LaCo 1-x Zn x O 3 oxides (x = 0, 0.1, 0.2, 0.3 and 0.4) via a facile sol-gel route and investigated their structural, morphological and electrochemical properties for a possible use as electrocatalysts toward oxygen evolution reaction in a basic solution. Among the developed materials, the LaCo 0.9 Zn 0.1 O 3 electrocatalyst displays a remarkable performance; an overpotential of merely 327 mV is needed to generate a specified current density of 10 mA.cm −2 geo ; a current density of around 73.41 mA cm −2  at 450 mV, almost twice as high compared to the pristine electrocatalyst; a faster reaction kinetic with a lower Tafel slope of ∼92 mV.dec −1 and an activity loss of less than 4% after 24 h of utilization.