Zn and Co Loaded Porous C Decorated Electrospun Nanofibers as Efficient Oxygen Evolution Reaction for Water Splitting
Muhammad Waseem Fazal, Farhan Zafar, Muhammad Asad, Fatimah Mohammad H. Al Sulami, Hamad Khalid, Adel A. Abdelwahab, Muhammad Usman Ur Rehman, Naeem Akhtar, Waleed A. El‐Said, Sajjad Hussain, Mohamed A. Shenashen
Abstract
Developing a clean and efficient noble metal free electrocatalyst for oxygen evolution reaction (OER) is urgently needed to accelerate water splitting green energy conversion systems. Herein, we reported the fabrication of a noble metal-free electrocatalyst based on Zn and Co loaded porous C decorated cellulose acetate-polyaniline (ZnCo-C/CA-PANI) electrospun nanofibers at the surface of nickel foam (NF). The smooth coating of CA-PANI electrospun nanofibers at the surface of NF helps in exposing the maximum fraction of ZnCo-C based electrocatalyst and uniform flow of ions at the entire surface, thus resulting in high OH – adsorption capability. The designed ZnCo-C/CA-PANI@NF electrode acts as an efficient electrocatalyst for oxygen evolution reaction (OER) in an alkaline medium and offers a lower onset potential (1.34 V vs RHE), a small Tafel slope of 42 mV/dec, and high stability. These results suggest a concept of exploring more such noble metal free hybrid materials that could induce the efficient electrocatalytic water splitting for sustainable energy conversion.