Flexible bifunctional electrode for alkaline water splitting with long-term stability

Tools

Ganguly, Abhijit and McGlynn, Ruairi J. and Boies, Adam and Maguire, Paul and Mariotti, Davide and Chakrabarti, Supriya (2024) Flexible bifunctional electrode for alkaline water splitting with long-term stability. ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces, 16 (10). 12339–12352. ISSN 1944-8252 (https://doi.org/10.1021/acsami.3c12944)

[thumbnail of Ganguly-etal-ACSAMI-2024-Flexible-bifunctional-electrode-for-alkaline-water-splitting-with-long-term-stability]
Preview
 Text. Filename: Ganguly-etal-ACSAMI-2024-Flexible-bifunctional-electrode-for-alkaline-water-splitting-with-long-term-stability.pdf
Final Published Version
License: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 logo
Download (7MB)| Preview

Abstract

Progress in electrochemical water-splitting devices as future renewable and clean energy systems requires the development of electrodes composed of efficient and earth-abundant bifunctional electrocatalysts. This study reveals a novel flexible and bifunctional electrode (NiO@CNTR) by hybridizing macroscopically assembled carbon nanotube ribbons (CNTRs) and atmospheric plasma-synthesized NiO quantum dots (QDs) with varied loadings to demonstrate bifunctional electrocatalytic activity for stable and efficient overall water-splitting (OWS) applications. Comparative studies on the effect of different electrolytes, e.g., acid and alkaline, reveal a strong preference for alkaline electrolytes for the developed NiO@CNTR electrode, suggesting its bifunctionality for both HER and OER activities. Our proposed NiO@CNTR electrode demonstrates significantly enhanced overall catalytic performance in a two-electrode alkaline electrolyzer cell configuration by assembling the same electrode materials as both the anode and the cathode, with a remarkable long-standing stability retaining ∼100% of the initial current after a 100 h long OWS run, which is attributed to the “synergistic coupling” between NiO QD catalysts and the CNTR matrix. Interestingly, the developed electrode exhibits a cell potential (E10) of only 1.81 V with significantly low NiO QD loading (83 μg/cm2) compared to other catalyst loading values reported in the literature. This study demonstrates a potential class of carbon-based electrodes with single-metal-based bifunctional catalysts that opens up a cost-effective and large-scale pathway for further development of catalysts and their loading engineering suitable for alkaline-based OWS applications and green hydrogen generation.

ORCID iDs

Ganguly, Abhijit, McGlynn, Ruairi J., Boies, Adam, Maguire, Paul, Mariotti, Davide ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1504-4383 and Chakrabarti, Supriya;
CORE (COnnecting REpositories)