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A Morphologically Engineered Robust Bifunctional CuCo 2 O 4 Nanosheet Catalyst for Highly Efficient Overall Water Splitting
Author(s) -
Aqueel Ahmed Abu Talha,
Pawar Sambhaji M.,
Inamdar Akbar I.,
Kim Hyungsang,
Im Hyunsik
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
advanced materials interfaces
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.671
H-Index - 65
ISSN - 2196-7350
DOI - 10.1002/admi.201901515
Subject(s) - overpotential , electrocatalyst , materials science , nanosheet , bifunctional , catalysis , water splitting , chemical engineering , electrochemistry , crystallinity , oxygen evolution , hydrothermal circulation , electrolyte , reversible hydrogen electrode , inorganic chemistry , electrode , nanotechnology , working electrode , composite material , chemistry , organic chemistry , photocatalysis , engineering
The development of an earth abundant, low‐cost, and energy‐efficient electrocatalyst with robust adhesion is highly essential for the generation of hydrogen fuel. Herein, the outstanding overall water splitting performance of a CuCo 2 O 4 catalyst which is fabricated using a hydrothermal process is reported. The performance optimization is done through engineering the surface structure and size of the CuCo 2 O 4 catalyst, without altering its chemical composition and crystallinity. Different solvents used in the hydrothermal growth tune the morphology of CuCo 2 O 4 from porous 2‐dimensional nanosheets through cubes and grains to agglomerated spheres. An optimized 2‐dimensional nanosheet CuCo 2 O 4 catalyst exhibits superior electrochemical performance for both hydrogen evolution reaction and oxygen evolution reaction, achieving the smallest overpotential of 115 and 290 mV versus a reversible hydrogen electrode, respectively, at 10 mA cm −2 with excellent long‐term stability under an alkaline electrolyte medium (1.0 m KOH). This highly stable and electrochemically active bifunctional electrocatalyst can deliver a cell voltage of 1.64 V at 10 mA cm −2 under alkaline condition. Moreover, the correlation between electrochemical catalytic activity with solvent viscosity is manifested in the present study, which reveals that a change in morphologies causes the catalytically active surface area to vary and influences the intrinsic reaction kinetics.