Cation Exchange Strategy to Single-Atom Noble-Metal Doped CuO Nanowire Arrays with Ultralow Overpotential for H2O Splitting

Single-atom site catalysts (SACs) have aroused enormous attention and brought about new opportunities for many applications. Herein, we report a versatile strategy to rhodium (Rh) SAC by a facile cation exchange reaction. Remarkably, the Rh SAC modified CuO nanowire arrays on copper foam (Rh SAC–CuO NAs/CF) show unprecedented alkaline oxygen evolution reaction (OER) activity with a high current density of 84.5 mA cm–2@1.5 V vs reversible hydrogen electrode (RHE), 9.7 times that of Ir/C/CF. More strikingly, when used as an anode and a cathode for overall water splitting, the Rh SAC–CuO NAs/CF can achieve 10 mA cm–2 at only 1.51 V. Density functional theory calculations reveal that the high OER and HER intrinsic catalytic activities result from moderate adsorption energy of intermediates on Rh SAC. Finally, we demonstrate the general synthesis of different single-atom noble-metal catalysts on CuO NAs (M SAC–CuO NAs/CF, where M = Ru, Ir, Os, and Au).