A Simple Route for the Synthesis of Cobalt Phosphate Nanoparticles for Electrocatalytic Water Oxidation in Alkaline Medium
Selvasundarasekar Sam Sankar, Arumugam Rathishkumar, K. Geetha, Subrata Kundu
Abstract
Owing to the over usage of fossil fuels, energy demand increases significantly, and so an alternative to the fossil fuel is highly recommendable. Hydrogen fuel is considered as a better replacement due to its efficiency and eco-friendly nature. Water electrolysis is the highly recommendable method to produce the high pure hydrogen and in continuation, finding the efficient and non-noble metal electrocatalysts are highly desirable to have commercial production. Transition metal phosphates are having many advantages, which include their abundance in nature, less cost, and commercially viable. Herein, one simple synthetic strategy is proposed for the production of porous cobalt phosphate nanoparticles (NPs) by a simple wet chemical route. The synthesized cobalt phosphate NPs have subjected to the electrocatalytic oxygen evolution reaction in an alkaline medium (1 M KOH), which showed a lesser overpotential of 299 mV at 10 mAcm–2 current density and showing excellent stability over 12 h. Owing to this excellent outcome, the designed cobalt phosphate NPs could be utilized for other energy related applications in near future.