Abstract:
Electrochemical water splitting with renewable electricity is being studied as a long-term, clean, and significant source of hydrogen for transportation and energy uses. However, despite the lower istability iof ithese ielectrode imaterials, ithe iineffectiveness iof ithe iHER istep iin iacidic ienvironments, ias iwell ias ithe islow ikinetics iand ihigh ioverpotential ivalues iof ithe icomplex ifour-electron itransfer iOER iprocess, ilarge-scale iproduction iof iH2 iby iwater isplitting iis ilimited. Thus, current research focuses on developing effective bifunctional electrocatalysts that can reduce OER and HER overpotential and can also be easily adopted at industrial or commercial levels. The main objective of this research project was to introduce a proper bifunctional electrocatalyst for water splitting reactions that can easily be commercialized. The in-situ growth of layered double hydroxides of transition metal oxides has received the most attention. The remarkable flexibility in composition and crystal structure points them to the tunable electronic structure of layered double hydroxides.
Herein, in-situ growth of hierarchical heterostructured transition metals layered double hydroxides of nickel and cobalt has been carried out on commercial grade nonmagnetic stainless-steel substrate via hydrothermal reaction method. The NiCo-LDH supported on highly conductive stainless-steel, and this was a new way to improve the durability, stability and characteristic property LDHs, both for HER and OER and commercializability as an electrode material. Furthermore, the synthesized catalyst has been characterized iby iscanning ielectron imicroscopy i(SEM), ienergy idispersive ix-ray ispectroscopy i(EDX), iX-ray idiffraction i(XRD), iRaman ispectroscopy, iFourier itransform iinfrared ispectroscopy i(FTIR). The characterization results show that the catalyst was effectively prepared. The bifunctional activity of catalysts has been tested by electrochemical testing that was performed in the alkaline media for HER and OER reactions. Also calculated Tafel slope, overpotential, and mass activity. The synthesized NiCo-LDH/SS has shown the most proficient results with high stability and low resistance values.
