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A Facile Synthesis of Size-Controllable IrO2 and RuO2 Nanoparticles for the Oxygen Evolution Reaction

Electrocatalysis volume 7, pages 420–427 (2016)Cite this article

Abstract

The efficiency of the water electrolysis process is restricted by the sluggish kinetics of the oxygen evolution reaction (OER). Developing efficient catalysts and their synthesis methods is highly desired to improve the kinetics of the OER and therefore the overall efficiency of the water electrolysis. In this report, we present a facile wet-chemical method for synthesizing IrO2 and RuO2 nanoparticles (NPs) for the OER. The nanoparticles were synthesized by reducing metal chlorides in ethylene glycol in the presence of polyvinylpyrrolidone, followed by annealing in air. The particle size was controlled by adjusting the annealing temperature. The activity of IrO2 and RuO2 NPs supported on carbon black was investigated by cyclic voltammetry (CV) in alkaline (0.1 M KOH) electrolyte. As-synthesized IrO2 and RuO2 NPs showed high OER activity. The IrO2 NPs exhibited a specific activity of up to 3.5 (±1.6) μA/cm2 oxide at 1.53 V (vs. RHE), while the RuO2 NPs achieved a value of 124.2 (±8) μA/cm2 oxide. Moreover, RuO2 NPs showed a mass activity for OER, up to 102.6 (±10.5) A/goxide at 1.53 V (vs. RHE), which represents the highest value reported in the literature to date.

A facile wet-chemical method for synthesizing IrO2 and RuO2 nanoparticles (NPs) is reported here. The nanoparticles were synthesized by reducing metal chlorides in ethylene glycol in the presence of polyvinylpyrrolidone, followed by annealing in air. The size of particles can be controlled by varying the annealing temperature and subsequently their OER activities are varied

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Acknowledgment

This work was supported by the Singapore Ministry of Education Tier 1 Grant (RG131/14) and Tier 2 Grant (MOE2015-T2-1-020) and the Singapore National Research Foundation under its Campus for Research Excellence And Technological Enterprise (CREATE) program. The authors thank Prof. Timothy John White for valuable discussion and Dr. Yubo Chen for technical supports on XRD data analysis.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Materials Science and Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, Singapore

    Tam D. Nguyen & Zhichuan J. Xu

  2. Energy Research Institute @ Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, Singapore

    Tam D. Nguyen & Zhichuan J. Xu

  3. TUM-CREATE, 1 Create Way, 138602, Singapore, Singapore

    Günther G. Scherer

  4. Solar Fuels Laboratory, School of Material Science and Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, Singapore

    Zhichuan J. Xu

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  1. Tam D. Nguyen
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  2. Günther G. Scherer
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Nguyen, T.D., Scherer, G.G. & Xu, Z.J. A Facile Synthesis of Size-Controllable IrO2 and RuO2 Nanoparticles for the Oxygen Evolution Reaction. Electrocatalysis 7, 420–427 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12678-016-0321-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12678-016-0321-2

Keywords

  • Oxygen evolution
  • IrO2
  • RuO2
  • Synthesis
  • Nanoparticles