1 research outputs found
Selecting Support Layer for Electrodeposited Efficient Cobalt Oxide/Hydroxide Nanoflakes to Split Water
Energy
and environment crises motivated scientists to develop sustainable,
renewable, and clean energy resources mainly based on solar hydrogen.
For this purpose, one main challenge is the low cost flexible substrates
for designing earth abundant efficient cocatalysts to reduce required
water oxidation overpotential. Here, a systematic morphological and
electrochemical study has been reported for cobalt oxide/hydroxide
nanoflakes simply electrodeposited on four different commercially
available substrates, titanium, copper sheet, steel mesh, and nickel
foam. Remarkable dependence between the used substrate, morphology,
and electrocatalytic properties of nanoflakes introduced flexible
porous steel layer as the best substrate for samples with 499 mV overpotential,
5.3 Ω charge transfer resistance, and 0.03 S<sup>–1</sup> turnover frequency. Besides, carbonaceous paste including carbon
nanotubes and graphene sheets as the middle layer increased turnover
frequency by 33%, effective surface interface nearly three times while
it reduced 7.5% of resistance. Hence, optimizing the conductive nanostructured
paste can lead to more efficient cobalt electrocatalysts exposing
more active atomic surface sites