Sadeghi Ebrahim, Peighambardoust Naeimeh Sadat, Khatamian Masoumeh, Unal Ugur, Aydemir Umut
Koç University Boron and Advanced Materials Application and Research Center (KUBAM), 34450, Sariyer, Istanbul, Turkey.
Graduate School of Sciences and Engineering, Koç University, 34450, Sariyer, Istanbul, Turkey.
Sci Rep. 2021 Feb 8;11(1):3337. doi: 10.1038/s41598-021-83066-7.
Growing environmental problems along with the galloping rate of population growth have raised an unprecedented challenge to look for an ever-lasting alternative source of energy for fossil fuels. The eternal quest for sustainable energy production strategies has culminated in the electrocatalytic water splitting process integrated with renewable energy resources. The successful accomplishment of this process is thoroughly subject to competent, earth-abundant, and low-cost electrocatalysts to drive the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) and hydrogen evolution reaction (HER), preferably, in the same electrolyte. The present contribution has been dedicated to studying the synthesis, characterization, and electrochemical properties of newfangled electrocatalysts with the formal composition of MgTMB (x = 0.025, 0.05, and 0.1; TM (transition metal) = Fe and Co) primarily in HER as well as OER under 1 M KOH medium. The electrochemical tests revealed that among all the metal-doped MgB catalysts, MgCoB has the best HER performance showing an overpotential of 470 mV at - 10 mA cm and a Tafel slope of 80 mV dec on account of its high purity and fast electron transport. Further investigation shed some light on the fact that Fe concentration and overpotential for HER have adverse relation meaning that the highest amount of Fe doping (x = 0.1) displayed the lowest overpotential. This contribution introduces not only highly competent electrocatalysts composed of low-cost precursors for the water-splitting process but also a facile scalable method for the assembly of highly porous electrodes paving the way for further stunning developments in the field.
日益严重的环境问题以及飞速增长的人口增长率，对寻找化石燃料的持久替代能源提出了前所未有的挑战。对可持续能源生产策略的不懈追求，最终促成了与可再生能源相结合的电催化水分解过程。这一过程的成功实现完全取决于高效、储量丰富且低成本的电催化剂，以驱动析氧反应（OER）和析氢反应（HER），最好是在同一电解质中进行。本文致力于研究新型电催化剂MgTMB（x = 0.025、0.05和0.1；TM（过渡金属）= Fe和Co）的合成、表征及电化学性质，主要是在1 M KOH介质下的HER和OER。电化学测试表明，在所有金属掺杂的MgB催化剂中，MgCoB具有最佳的HER性能，在-10 mA cm时过电位为470 mV，塔菲尔斜率为80 mV dec，这归因于其高纯度和快速的电子传输。进一步的研究揭示了一个事实，即Fe浓度与HER的过电位呈负相关，这意味着最高Fe掺杂量（x = 0.1）表现出最低的过电位。本文不仅介绍了用于水分解过程的由低成本前驱体制备的高效电催化剂，还介绍了一种用于组装高度多孔电极的简便可扩展方法，为该领域的进一步惊人发展铺平了道路。
