CoFeNiMnZnB as a high-entropy metal boride to boost the oxygen evolution reaction

High-entropy materials offer numerous advantages as catalysts, including a flexible composition to tune the catalytic activity and selectivity and a large variety of adsorption/reaction sites for multistep or multiple reactions. Herein, we report on the synthesis, properties, and electrocatalytic performance of an amorphous high-entropy boride based on abundant transition metals, CoFeNiMnZnB. This metal boride provides excellent performance toward the oxygen evolution reaction (OER), including a low overpotential of 261 mV at 10 mA cm–2, a reduced Tafel slope of 56.8 mV dec–1, and very high stability. The outstanding OER performance of CoFeNiMnZnB is attributed to the synergistic interactions between the different metals, the leaching of Zn ions, the generation of oxygen vacancies, and the in situ formation of an amorphous oxyhydroxide at the CoFeNiMnZnB surface during the OER.