Highly efficient and selective metal oxy-boride electrocatalysts for oxygen evolution from alkali and saline solutions

Gupta, Suraj ORCID: 0000-0001-8128-5869, Forster, Mark ORCID: 0000-0002-8077-7690, Yadav, Asha, Cowan, Alexander J ORCID: 0000-0001-9032-3548, Patel, Nainesh and Patel, Maulik ORCID: 0000-0002-3214-5752 (2020) Highly efficient and selective metal oxy-boride electrocatalysts for oxygen evolution from alkali and saline solutions. ACS Applied Energy Materials, 3 (8). pp. 7619-7628.

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Abstract

With a motivation to discover efficient materials for direct electrolysis of seawater, bimetallic oxy-boride (Co-Fe-O-B) nanostructures were developed using a facile hydrothermal synthesis strategy, with varying content of Fe. The oxygen evolution performance of the optimized Co-Fe-O-B catalyst in alkali water (1 M KOH) showed higher reaction rates owing to a Co3O4-core-Co2B-shell structure, which assists in the formation of active CoOOH species at lower potentials and offers a smaller charge-transfer resistance. The best-performing catalyst in alkali water was found to be highly active (294 mV to achieve 10 mA/cm2) in saline water (1 M KOH + 0.5 M NaCl), with 100% O2 selectivity, establishing its potential for seawater electrolysis. The high activity and selectivity of the oxy-boride catalyst in alkaline saline electrolyte presents a fresh avenue for research in low-cost materials, especially boron-containing compounds, for selective seawater splitting.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	metal oxy-borides, oxygen evolution, alkali water splitting, seawater electrolysis, chlorine oxidation
Depositing User:	Symplectic Admin
Date Deposited:	08 Jul 2020 09:01
Last Modified:	18 Jan 2023 23:46
DOI:	10.1021/acsaem.0c01040
Related URLs:	Author Publisher
URI:	https://livrepository.liverpool.ac.uk/id/eprint/3093253