Aldosari, H.; Ali, A.; Asghar, M.A.; Haider, A.; Mehmood, Y.; Iqbal, Z.; Nazir, A.; Iqbal, M.: Surface modified carbon nanotubes fiber as flexible bifunctional electrocatalyst for overall electrochemical water splitting reactions. Journal of Science: Advanced Materials and Devices 8 (2023), p. 100638/1-9
10.1016/j.jsamd.2023.100638
Open Access Version
Abstract:
Electrocatalytic water splitting is regarded as a promising approach to produce hydrogen, which is a clean and renewable fuel. The process is mainly constrained due to the sluggish proton-coupled four-electrode transfer process at the anode for oxygen evolution reaction (OER) with high overpotential requirement. Herein this work, we used a one-step hydrothermal method for the in-situ synthesis of CoSe nanoparticles over the surface of carbon nanotube-based fiber (CNTs fiber) and utilized it as a bifunctional electrocatalyst for the electrochemical water splitting process. Surface-modified fiber showed excellent performance towards OER with a low overpotential (η10 = 414 mV) and Tafel slope (77 mVdec−1). We also exploited the same material as cathode, which exhibited an excellent hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) at the counterpart with improved catalytic performance as compared to bare CNTs materials. During the HER process in the cathodic potential region, the electrocatalyst displayed a current density of 10 mAcm−2 at an overpotential of 496 mV. Furthermore, the electrocatalyst exhibited excellent performance during the testing for the overall water splitting. The outcomes reveal that the fabricated electrode can be potentially applied as an efficient and flexible electrode to derive the hydrogen as fuels during the overall electrochemical water splitting reaction.