Synthesis of iron and nickel based metal oxide nanoparticles and investigation of their potential use as catalysts in water oxidation reaction

Date

2023-12-06

Author

ATAK, BÜŞRA

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The urge to find energy sources alternative to fossil fuel made hydrogen a centre of interest. Splitting water is very promising and environmentally friendly way of obtaining hydrogen, yet the process embodies some difficulties. Half-reactions involved in this process, particularly the anode reaction (oxygen evolution reaction (OER)), proceed slowly and require high energy. These difficulties can be overcome with the use of proper catalyst. The most effective catalysts for OER are Ru and Ir - based. However, their low abundancy and high cost are the main drawbacks for their practical use. Metal oxide nanoparticles of abundant transition metals are considered as promising alternative catalysts. Therefore, our study aim is to synthesize ZnO NiFe2O4 hybrid nanomaterials that have potential use as catalyst in photochemical water splitting. As ZnO component play a key role in enhancing photocatalytic activity of the hybrid material, NiFe2O4 component function as driving force for the electrochemical process.Hydrothermal, solvothermal and sol-gel methods were used for the synthesis of NiFe2O4, ZnO and ZnO-NiFe2O4 hybrid material. Then, a variety of analytical methods, such as SEM, EDX, ICP-OES, XPS, BET, and XRD were used to characterize the synthesized nanomaterials. The electrochemical behaviour of the hybrid material in OER was examined. The results showed that ZnO-NiFe2O4 hybrid nanomaterial with an onset potential of 1.63 V vs RHE and overpotential of 450 mV at 10 mA cm-2 has encouraging catalytic activity in OER. Overall water oxidation activity of the synthesized material was found to be comparable to the one of RuO2.

Subject Keywords

Metal oxides nanoparticles, Nickel, Ferrite, Water oxidation, Electrocatalysis

URI

https://hdl.handle.net/11511/107735

Collections

Graduate School of Natural and Applied Sciences, Thesis