Electrochemical Performance Evaluation of CuO@Cu2O Nanowires Array on Cu Foam as Bifunctional Electrocatalyst for Efficient Water Splitting

Publication date: January 2020Source: Chinese Journal of Analytical Chemistry, Volume 48, Issue 1Author(s): Xing-Xing MA, Li CHEN, Zhe ZHANG, Ji-Lin TANGAbstractWater splitting is of crucial importance for exploiting renewable energy conversion and storage systems. Designing efficient bifunctional electrocatalysts for both the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) and oxygen evolution reaction (OER) is in desperate need for the development of overall water-splitting devices. Herein, dense CuxO nanowires were fabricated on three dimensional Cu foam (CF), which were consisted of mixed Cu2O phase and CuO phase as electrochemical active sites. Importantly, through characterization of morphology and chemical composition, we found that Cu2O and CuO could transform to each other during electrochemical reduction or oxidation process. Cu2O and CuO served as active center for HER and OER respectively, and the transformation was beneficial to the catalytic performance. In alkaline solution, overpotentials as small as 135 mV and 315 mV to achieve 10 mA/cm2 current density and small Tafel slope of 135 dec−1 and 63 mV/dec were obtained on the CuxO NWs/CF catalyst for HER and OER, respectively. And it also showed long-term stability for both HER and OER.Graphical abstractCuxO nanowires array consist of CuO and Cu2O was in-situ fabricated on Cu foam (CuxO NWs/CF). It shows good electrochemical catalytic activity for both HER and OER. Cu2O and CuO can transform to each other during electrochemi...
Source: Chinese Journal of Analytical Chemistry - Category: Chemistry Source Type: research