Mesoporous Co-Na pyrophosphate/reduced graphene oxide as an oxygen evolution reaction electrocatalyst

•Using silica template, a mesoporous Na-Co pyrophospahte was produced.•Adding reduced graphene oxide increased oxygen evolution reaction activity.•An overpotential of 167 mV produced 10 mA cm−2 for oxygen evolution reaction.•Mesoporous Na2CoP2O7 had a surface area of 286 m2 g−1.•Mesoporous Na2CoP2O7/ reduced graphene oxide was stable for 10 h. In the current work, for the first time, hard-templating method was applied to synthesize mesoporous Na2CoP2O7 powder for oxygen evolution reaction (OER) application. X-ray diffraction patterns (XRD), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS), and Brunauer–Emmett–Teller (BET) analyses were carried out for investigating the structure, composition, and morphology of the electrocatalyst powder. The electrocatalytic performances of the mesoporous Na2CoP2O7 (meso-Na2CoP2O7) powder along with its composites with reduced graphene oxide (rGO) were studied by linear sweep voltammetry (LSV). The meso-Na2CoP2O7/rGO (50/50 wt%) composite required only 167 mV overpotential to produce a current density of 10 mA cm−2.