Issue 6, 2020

Co/Cu-modified NiO film grown on nickel foam as a highly active and stable electrocatalyst for overall water splitting

Abstract

The development and utilization of low-cost and efficient electrocatalysts for overall water splitting is of great significance for future energy supplies. Herein, a Co-doped NiCu mixed oxide film on Ni foam as a bifunctional electrocatalyst for the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) and oxygen evolution reaction (OER) is synthesized by a facile solvothermal method using methanol as a reactant followed by annealing in air and it exhibits remarkably enhanced HER and OER activities. The well-constructed surface and porous skeleton structure with a large volume provide a large number of catalytically active sites during the electrochemical reaction. Notably, CuO plays an important role in improving the catalytic activity of the electrode; meanwhile, Co doping is beneficial for increasing the conductivity and activating the Ni sites at lower overpotentials via the charge transfer effect. Accordingly, the optimized CuO–NiO/Ni foam electrode exhibits a comparatively low overpotential of 38 mV and 172 mV at 10 mA cm−2 for the HER and OER in 1.0 M KOH, respectively. Moreover, the electrode shows excellent long-term stability for 1000 cyclic voltammetric cycles in both the HER and OER. A self-assembled overall water splitting device using this electrode as both the anode and cathode achieves a current density of 10 mA cm−2 at a low cell voltage of 1.51 V. This study is promising and provides a simple method for depositing a multimetal mixed oxide on a metal substrate resulting in an efficient bifunctional electrocatalyst, holding great significance for future energy applications.

Graphical abstract: Co/Cu-modified NiO film grown on nickel foam as a highly active and stable electrocatalyst for overall water splitting

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
16 Dec 2019
Accepted
14 Jan 2020
First published
15 Jan 2020

Dalton Trans., 2020,49, 1776-1784

Co/Cu-modified NiO film grown on nickel foam as a highly active and stable electrocatalyst for overall water splitting

Z. Guo, X. Wang, Y. Gao and Z. Liu, Dalton Trans., 2020, 49, 1776 DOI: 10.1039/C9DT04771A

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