Designing Metal Oxide Nanostructure for Electrochemical Water Splitting

Abstract

Fuel cell technology is in demand nowadays owing to the urgent need of more eco-friendly and everlasting energy sources. Hydrogen fuel has great potential in electricity and transportation. Water splitting is one of the most proficient techniques for production of hydrogen. Electrolysis of water requires efficient catalysts which can work at lower overpotential to exhibit reactions like HER (Hydrogen Evolution Reaction) and OER (Oxygen Evolution Reaction). Earlier noble metal like Pt, Ir, Ru were used as electrocatalysts. However, in the present study, non-precious metals like Ni, Fe etc were used to synthesize an economical electrocatalyst by a hydrothermal process. The purity and crystallanity of the prepared samples was verified by XRD. BET analysis revealed that the samples had reasonable surface area. The catalyst works at lower overpotential for HER and OER. The sample made with sucrose is better as it shows better water splitting efficiency. The study explicates the simplistic approach to synthesize NiFe based NPs having excellent activity toward water splitting for generation of hydrogen.