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Construction of robust and durable Cu2Se-V2O5 nanosheet electrocatalyst for alkaline oxygen evolution reaction

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Abstract

Reducing the production costs of clean energy carriers such as hydrogen through scalable water electrolysis is a potential solution for advancing the hydrogen economy. Among the various material candidates, our group demonstrated transition-metal-based materials with tunable electronic characteristics, various phases, and earth-abundance. Herein, electrochemical water oxidation using Cu2Se-V2O5 as a non-precious metallic electrocatalyst via a hydrothermal approach is reported. The water-splitting performance of all the fabricated electrocatalysts was evaluated after direct growth on a stainless-steel substrate. The electrochemically tuned Cu2Se-V2O5 catalyst exhibited a reduced overpotential of 128 mV and provided a reduced Tafel slope of 57 mV·dec−1 to meet the maximum current density of 250 mA·cm−2. The optimized strategy for interfacial coupling of the fabricated Cu2Se-V2O5 catalyst resulted in a porous structure with accessible active sites, which enabled adsorption of the intermediates and afforded an effective charge transfer rate for promoting the oxygen evolution reaction. Furthermore, the combined effect of the catalyst components provided long-term stability for over 110 h in an alkaline solution, which makes the catalyst promising for large-scale practical applications. The aforementioned advantages of the composite catalyst overcome the limitations of low conductivity, agglomeration, and poor stability of the pure catalysts (Cu2Se and V2O5).

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Acknowledgements

K M Batoo expresses thanks to the Researchers Supporting Project (Grant No. RSP2024R148) and King Saud University (Riyadh, Saudi Arabia) for their financial support. The authors also acknowledge assistance from Yahya Zakaria at the Core Laboratories at the Qatar Environment and Janarthanan Ponraj at the Energy Research Institute (QEERI), Hamad Bin Khalifa University, with XPS and TEM characterization.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Physics, The Islamia University of Bahawalpur, Bahawalpur, 63100, Pakistan

    Tauseef Munawar, Ambreen Bashir, Saman Fatima, Faisal Mukhtar & Faisal Iqbal

  2. King Abdullah Institute for Nanotechnology, King Saud University, Riyadh, 11451, Saudi Arabia

    Khalid Mujasam Batoo

  3. Hybrid Materials Center (HMC), Sejong University, Seoul, 05006, Republic of Korea

    Sajjad Hussain

  4. Department of Nanotechnology and Advanced Materials Engineering, Sejong University, Seoul, 05006, Republic of Korea

    Sajjad Hussain

  5. Institute of Chemical Sciences, Bahauddin Zakariya University, Multan, 60800, Pakistan

    Sumaira Manzoor & Muhammad Naeem Ashiq

  6. Division of Sustainable Development, College of Science and Engineering, Hamad Bin Khalifa University, Qatar Foundation, Doha, 34110, Qatar

    Shoukat Alim Khan & Muammer Koc

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  1. Tauseef Munawar
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  2. Ambreen Bashir
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  3. Khalid Mujasam Batoo
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  4. Saman Fatima
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  5. Faisal Mukhtar
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  8. Muhammad Naeem Ashiq
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  11. Faisal Iqbal
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Correspondence to Faisal Iqbal.

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Munawar, T., Bashir, A., Batoo, K.M. et al. Construction of robust and durable Cu2Se-V2O5 nanosheet electrocatalyst for alkaline oxygen evolution reaction. Front. Chem. Sci. Eng. 18, 65 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11705-024-2420-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11705-024-2420-6

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