Abstract
Novel crystalline nickel–tungsten oxide composite fibers were synthesized for the first time, to the best of our knowledge, through the electrospinning method using nickel acetate and ammonium metatungstate as precursor solutions. Fibers with five different Ni:W molar ratios, 2:1, 1:1, 1:2, 3:1 and 1:3, were prepared. After calcination, the produced fibers were composed of tungsten oxide (WO3), nickel oxide (NiO) and nickel tungstate (NiWO4). Fiber morphology and structure were studied using scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscopy and X-ray diffraction. Selected fibers were investigated for electrocatalytic hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) in 0.5 M H2SO4 and 0.1 M KOH electrolytes. The electrospun composite fibers showed good electrocatalytic activity compared to pure NiO and WO3 fibers with an overpotential of 80 mV and 60 mV in acidic and basic media, respectively. Low Tafel slopes were also registered as 50.27 mV/dec and 41.29 mV/dec in H2SO4 and KOH, respectively. The presence of NiWO4 compound, formed during the composite fabrication, was responsible for improving the electrocatalytic performance of the fibrous catalyst.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Ahmed FE, Lalia BS, Hashaikeh R (2015) A review on electrospinning for membrane fabrication: challenges and applications. Desalination 356:15–30
Wu H, Hu L, Rowell MW, Kong D, Cha JJ, McDonough JR, Zhu J, Yang Y, McGehee MD, Cui Y (2010) Electrospun metal nanofiber webs as high-performance transparent electrode. Nano Lett 10:4242–4248
Anis SF, Khalil A, Singaravel G, Hashaikeh R (2016) A review on the fabrication of zeolite and mesoporous inorganic nanofibers formation for catalytic applications. Microporous Mesoporous Mater 236:176–192
Hou H, Dong C, Wang L, Gao F, Wei G, Zheng J, Cheng X, Tang B, Yang W (2013) Electrospinning graphite/SiC mesoporous hybrid fibers with tunable structures. CrystEngComm 15:2002–2008
Liu J, Jiang G, Liu Y, Di J, Wang Y, Zhao Z, Sun Q, Xu C, Gao J, Duan A (2014) Hierarchical macro–meso–microporous ZSM-5 zeolite hollow fibers with highly efficient catalytic cracking capability. Sci Rep 4:7276
Pham-Huu C, Winé G, Tessonnier J-P, Ledoux M-J, Rigolet S, Marichal C (2004) BETA zeolite nanowire synthesis under non-hydrothermal conditions using carbon nanotubes as template. Carbon 42:1941–1946
Khalil A, Singh Lalia B, Hashaikeh R, Khraisheh M (2013) Electrospun metallic nanowires: synthesis, characterization, and applications. J Appl Phys 114:171301–171316
Singh N, Mondal K, Misra M, Sharma A, Gupta RK (2016) Quantum dot sensitized electrospun mesoporous titanium dioxide hollow nanofibers for photocatalytic applications. RSC Adv 6:48109–48119
Leon N, Figueroa G, Wang Y, Ramos I, Furlan R, Pinto N, Santiago-Aviles JJ (2005) Electrospun tin oxide nanofibers, In: Microtechnologies for the New Millennium. International Society for Optics and Photonics, pp 21–28
Wang G, Huang X, Dudley M, Gouma P-I, Yang X (2005) Fabrication and characterization of molybdenum oxide nanofibers by electrospinning. In: MRS proceedings, Cambridge University Press, pp 0900-O0903-0922
Baranowska-Korczyc A, Fronc K, Klopotowski L, Reszka A, Sobczak K, Paszkowicz W, Dybko K, Dluzewski P, Kowalski BJ, Elbaum D (2013) Light- and environment-sensitive electrospun ZnO nanofibers. RSC Adv 3:5656–5662
An X, Yu JC, Wang Y, Hu Y, Yu X, Zhang G (2012) WO3 nanorods/graphene nanocomposites for high-efficiency visible-light-driven photocatalysis and NO2 gas sensing. J Mater Chem 22:8525–8531
Liu H, Wang X, He G, Lin Y, Wei J, Zheng J, Zheng G, Sun D (2013) Electrospun nickel oxide nanofibers for gas sensor application. In: 2013 8th IEEE international conference on Nano/micro engineered and molecular systems (NEMS). IEEE, pp 377–380
Huang H, Li J, Li M, Min E, Nie H, Ran G, Shi Y, Tao Z, Wang Z, Xia G (1999) Catalyst for hydrotreating light oil distillates and preparation thereof. Google Patents
Cristino V, Caramori S, Argazzi R, Meda L, Marra GL, Bignozzi CA (2011) Efficient photoelectrochemical water splitting by anodically grown WO3 electrodes. Langmuir 27:7276–7284
Yan X, Tian L, Chen X (2015) Crystalline/amorphous Ni/NiO core/shell nanosheets as highly active electrocatalysts for hydrogen evolution reaction. J Power Sources 300:336–343
Lalia BS, Khalil A, Shah T, Hashaikeh R (2015) Flexible carbon nanostructures with electrospun nickel oxide as a lithium-ion battery anode. Ionics 21:2755–2762
Lalia BS, Shah T, Hashaikeh R (2015) Microbundles of carbon nanostructures as binder free highly conductive matrix for LiFePO4 battery cathode. J Power Sources 278:314–319
Chekin F, Bagherib S, Hamidb SBA (2013) Synthesis of tungsten oxide nanorods by the controlling precipitation reaction: application for hydrogen evolution reaction on a WO3 nanorods/carbon nanotubes composite film modified electrode. J Chin Chem Soc 60:447–451
Yu X, Hua T, Liu X, Yan Z, Xu P, Du P (2014) Nickel-based thin film on multiwalled carbon nanotubes as an efficient bifunctional electrocatalyst for water splitting. ACS Appl Mater Interfaces 6:15395–15402
Mohamed MM, Ahmed SA, Khairou KS (2014) Unprecedented high photocatalytic activity of nanocrystalline WO3/NiWO4 hetero-junction towards dye degradation: effect of template and synthesis conditions. Appl Catal B 150:63–73
Kuzmin A, Kalinko A, Evarestov R (2011) First-principles LCAO study of phonons in NiWO4. Open Phys 9:502–509
Bi Y, Nie H, Li D, Zeng S, Yang Q, Li M (2010) NiWO4 nanoparticles: a promising catalyst for hydrodesulfurization. Chem Commun 46:7430–7432
Mani S, Vediyappan V, Chen S-M, Madhu R, Pitchaimani V, Chang J-Y, Liu S-B (2016) Hydrothermal synthesis of NiWO4 crystals for high performance non-enzymatic glucose biosensors. Sci Rep 6:24128
Mancheva MN, Iordanova RS, Klissurski DG, Tyuliev GT, Kunev BN (2007) Direct mechanochemical synthesis of nanocrystalline NiWO4. J Phys Chem C 111:1101–1104
Talebi R (2016) Simple sonochemical synthesis and characterization of nickel tungstate nanoparticles and its photocatalyst application. J Mater Sci Mater Electron 27:3565–3569. doi:10.1007/s10854-015-4192-8
Zhu J, Li W, Li J, Li Y, Hu H, Yang Y (2013) Photoelectrochemical activity of NiWO4/WO3 heterojunction photoanode under visible light irradiation. Electrochim Acta 112:191–198
Vesborg PCK, Seger B, Chorkendorff I (2015) Recent development in hydrogen evolution reaction catalysts and their practical implementation. J Phys Chem Lett 6:951–957
Li YH, Liu PF, Pan LF, Wang HF, Yang ZZ, Zheng LR, Hu P, Zhao HJ, Gu L, Yang HG (2015) Local atomic structure modulations activate metal oxide as electrocatalyst for hydrogen evolution in acidic water. Nat Commun 6:8064
Shah TK, Malecki HC, Basantkumar RR, Liu H, Fleischer CA, Sedlak JJ, Patel JM, Burgess WP, Goldfinger JM (2013) Carbon nanostructures and methods of making the same. U.S. Patent Application 14/035,856, 24 September 2013
Anis SF, Hashaikeh R (2016) Electrospun zeolite-Y fibers: fabrication and morphology analysis. Microporous Mesoporous Mater 233:78–86
Matthews JA, Wnek GE, Simpson DG, Bowlin GL (2002) Electrospinning of collagen nanofibers. Biomacromolecules 3:232–238
Rietveld H (1969) A profile refinement method for nuclear and magnetic structures. J Appl Crystallogr 2:65–71
Gražulis S, Chateigner D, Downs RT, Yokochi A, Quirós M, Lutterotti L, Manakova E, Butkus J, Moeck P, Le Bail A (2009) Crystallography open database—an open-access collection of crystal structures. J Appl Crystallogr 42:726–729
Gerand B, Nowogrocki G, Guenot J, Figlarz M (1979) Structural study of a new hexagonal form of tungsten trioxide. J Solid State Chem 29:429–434
Gong M, Zhou W, Tsai M-C, Zhou J, Guan M, Lin M-C, Zhang B, Hu Y, Wang D-Y, Yang J (2014) Nanoscale nickel oxide/nickel heterostructures for active hydrogen evolution electrocatalysis. Nat Commun 5:4695
Zheng H, Mathe M (2011) Hydrogen evolution reaction on single crystal WO3/C nanoparticles supported on carbon in acid and alkaline solution. Int J Hydrogen Energy 36:1960–1964
Xu YF, Gao MR, Zheng YR, Jiang J, Yu SH (2013) Nickel/nickel(II) oxide nanoparticles anchored onto cobalt(IV) diselenide nanobelts for the electrochemical production of hydrogen. Angew Chem Int Ed 52:8546–8550
Youn DH, Han S, Kim JY, Kim JY, Park H, Choi SH, Lee JS (2014) Highly active and stable hydrogen evolution electrocatalysts based on molybdenum compounds on carbon nanotube-graphene hybrid support. ACS Nano 8:5164–5173
Lalia BS, Ahmed FE, Shah T, Hilal N, Hashaikeh R (2015) Electrically conductive membranes based on carbon nanostructures for self-cleaning of biofouling. Desalination 360:8–12
Acknowledgement
The authors would like to thank Lockheed Martin for providing the CNS material and Takreer Research Center for supporting this work.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Electronic supplementary material
Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Anis, S.F., Lalia, B.S., Mostafa, A.O. et al. Electrospun nickel–tungsten oxide composite fibers as active electrocatalysts for hydrogen evolution reaction. J Mater Sci 52, 7269–7281 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10853-017-0964-2
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10853-017-0964-2