Development of LaVC@BiVO ₄ Heterostructure as an Efficient Electrocatalyst for Oxygen Evolution Reaction

Electrochemical water splitting is a clean and promising strategy for hydrogen production, but its overall efficiency is limited by the sluggish four‐electron oxygen evolution reaction (OER) at the anode. To overcome such limitations, herein, we have prepared an LaVC carbide functionalized BiVO 4 heterostructure (LaVC@BiVO 4 ) via hydrothermal method, followed by sonication and calcination‐assisted method. The morphological and compositional characterization of synthesized LaVC@BiVO 4 confirmed the formation of heterostructure. Interestingly, LaVC@BiVO 4 exhibited excellent electrocatalytic activity with an overpotential of only 188.5 mV to achieve the current density of 10 mA cm −2 and remarkable stability for the long operation of 100 h. Additionally, the mass activity of LaVC@BiVO 4 (516 Ag −1 ) was found to be much higher as compared to BiVO 4 (298 Ag −1 ) and LaVC (114.6 Ag −1 ), underscoring the importance of heterostructure engineering between the conductive carbides‐ and vanadates‐based structures as effective approach for improved active site utilization as well as enhanced reaction kinetics for alkaline water electrolysis.