Exploring the hydrogen evolution capabilities of earth-abundant ternary metal borides for neutral and alkaline water-splitting

Fernandes, R, Chunduri, A, Gupta, S ORCID: 0000-0001-8128-5869, Kadrekar, R, Arya, A, Miotello, A and Patel, N (2020) Exploring the hydrogen evolution capabilities of earth-abundant ternary metal borides for neutral and alkaline water-splitting. Electrochimica Acta, 354. p. 136738.

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Abstract

Amorphous ternary metal borides in the form of Co-M-B (where, M = Fe, Ni, Cu, Mo, Mn, W or Cr) were developed for electrocatalytic hydrogen evolution in neutral and alkaline solutions. Except for Co-Cr-B, all the Co-M-B catalysts showed better hydrogen evolution rate than Co-B, with the lowest overpotential of 95 mV and 67 mV (at 10 mA/cm2) recorded for optimized Co-Mo-B catalyst, in pH 7 and pH 14, respectively. The reasons for enhancement in electrocatalytic rate, with inclusion of a second metal in Co-B, were investigated by considering several material related factors, such as, physical and electrochemical surface area, turn-over frequency, surface elemental states & composition and charge-transfer resistance. These experimental results were complemented with computational investigations to identify the most suitable sites for hydrogen adsorption and determine their H-adsorption energies. In the end, industrial feasibility of the developed Co-M-B catalysts was illustrated by performing stability and recycling tests.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Ternary metal borides, Hydrogen evolution reaction, Earth-abundant electrocatalysts, Neutral water electrolysis, H-adsorption energy
Depositing User:	Symplectic Admin
Date Deposited:	09 Jul 2020 07:57
Last Modified:	18 Jan 2023 23:46
DOI:	10.1016/j.electacta.2020.136738
Related URLs:	Publisher
URI:	https://livrepository.liverpool.ac.uk/id/eprint/3093373