Design, synthesis and application of electrospun heterostructured nanofibers for electrocatalytic hydrogen evolution reactions from water splitting

Abstract

Environmental problems and climate changes have increased the importance of studies on the development of sustainable and clean energy methods that can be an alternative to energy production technologies using fossil fuels in recent years. Green hydrogen is environmentally friendly and a high-capacity energy carrier, as it does not cause any toxic by-products during its production. For this reason, attempts are being made to increase the efficiency of green hydrogen produced from water splitting. Development of the catalytic activities and stability of electrocatalysts has gained great importance in order to increase the performance of the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER). This study examines the effect of Ni/NiO-reduced graphene oxide catalysts fabricated in the form of heterostructured fibers by electrospinning on their intrinsic and extrinsic activities and their performance for HER. In order to examine the stability, activity and kinetics of the synthesized electrocatalyst, studies such as linear sweep voltammetry (LSV), electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS), chronoamperometry (CA), were carried out and Tafel curves were interpreted. It has been observed that the optimal electrocatalyst exhibits outstanding electrocatalytic performance with an over potential of -212 mV at 10 mA cm-2, and a Tafel slope of 90.6 mV dec-1 in alkaline electrolyte. Morphological and structural characterizations of electrocatalysts were investigated using X-ray diffraction (XRD), fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), Raman spectroscopy, and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) methods.