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Molten Salts Derived Copper Tungstate Nanoparticles as Bifunctional Electro‐Catalysts for Electrolysis of Water and Supercapacitor Applications
Author(s) -
Ahmed Jahangeer,
Ahamad Tansir,
Alhokbany Norah,
Almaswari Basheer M.,
Ahmad Tokeer,
Hussain Afzal,
AlFarraj Eida Salman Saad,
Alshehri Saad M.
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
chemelectrochem
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.182
H-Index - 59
ISSN - 2196-0216
DOI - 10.1002/celc.201801196
Subject(s) - bulk electrolysis , cyclic voltammetry , electrolysis , electrolyte , materials science , oxygen evolution , nanoparticle , tafel equation , chemical engineering , electrochemistry , x ray photoelectron spectroscopy , inorganic chemistry , tungstate , electrode , chemistry , nanotechnology , engineering
Herein, we report molten salts derived, cube‐shaped CuWO 4 nanoparticles (50±5 nm) as multi‐functional catalysts in electrochemical and photo‐electrochemical studies. The formation of pure phase cube‐shaped CuWO 4 nanoparticles (CWO‐NPs) is analyzed by X‐ray diffraction, Raman spectroscopy, X‐ray photo‐electron spectroscopy (XPS) and field‐emission electron microscopy (FE‐SEM and FE‐TEM). CWO‐NPs show remarkable bi‐functional electro‐catalytic behavior for the oxygen evolution (OER) and oxygen reduction reactions (ORR) in 1.0 M KOH electrolyte solution. Polarization studies of CWO‐NPs exhibit low over‐potential (∼260 mV) at 1 mA/cm 2 and low Tafel slope value (∼190 mV/dec) for OER compared to bulk or other oxides. Polarization studies with controlled electrode rotation reveal a four‐electron pathway for the water electrolysis reaction for OER/ORR. In addition, CWO‐NPs show promising capacitive behavior with specific capacitance values of ∼230 F/g using 1 M KOH electrolyte. Galvanostatic charge‐discharge (GCD) studies of CWO‐NPs displays low energy loss during discharge time for 50 segments. To further investigate the potential for industrial applications, the stability of the electrodes is also examined using chrono‐amperometry (CA) at fixed potential, chrono‐potentiometry (CP) at fixed current density, and cyclic voltammetry (CV) with 50 cycles.