A stable and robust electrode using Copious metal oxide composite for green hydrogen production

Abstract

AbstractThe exploration of inexpensive and copious materials for water splitting has not come to an end even though a lot of materials has been synthesised to cope with the high overpotential and Tafel slope. The present manuscript demonstrates fabrication and performance studies of Co3O4 and TiO2 composite (CTC) catalyst coated electrode for electrochemical water splitting. The use of CTC (Co3O4@TiO2) showed the band gap of 2.41 eV which is found to be suitable for efficient water splitting reaction. The electrode fabrication was done using CTL coated FTO glass that provided a stable cathodic electrode for overall water splitting. The detail electrochemical studies of CTC electrode were performed in 1 M KOH electrolyte solution in a three‐electrode system. The CTC exhibited lowest Tafel slope value for both hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) of 51 mV/dec and oxygen evolution reaction (OER) of 166 mV/dec, calculated at 10 mA/cm2. Moreover, the highest current density 66.59 mA/cm2 at 0.20 V and 85.84 mA/cm2 at 1.85 V was observed for HER and OER, respectively. The significantly low overpotential 104 mV for HER and 240 mV for OER at 10 mA/cm2 depicted the efficiency of catalyst. The chronoamperometry study showed no significant loss in the activity CTC coating upto 32 h. Thus, the CTC coated electrode is found to be an excellent, stable and robust electrocatalyst for economical green H2 production.