Efficient electrochemical and photocatalytic performances of Cu-doped BaxAlxO3 nanocomposites

Abstract

The entire world is facing an alarming situation due to energy demands and environmental pollutions. Solid oxide fuel cells are attractive in the era of renewable energy. Developing the materials for anode in solid oxide fuel cell is a challenging task to overcome the losses. Novel nanocomposites materials Ba0.75Al0.20Cu0.05O3, Ba0.75Al0.15Cu0.10O3, Ba0.75Al0.10Cu0.15O3 were synthesized by sol-gel method. Structural and morphological properties were carried out using X-rays diffractions and scanning electron microscopy. The prepared materials show porous structure as confirmed by Scanning electron microscopic images, while the average crystallite size of 34 nm has been determined by XRD. Furthermore, thermal stability was checked by thermo-gravimetric analysis using the temperature up to 800°C. Among all the nanocomposites, Ba0.75Al0.15Cu0.10O3 has maximum conductivity of 5.25 Scm−1 at 650°C with power density of 483 mWcm−2. The ionic and electronic conduction play some key role in fuel- electricity conversion. Moreover, the photocatalytic degradation of Rhodamine B has also been studied using visible light source. Different percentage of copper doping has been reported in this work for elucidating comparative behavior of synthesized materials. To the best of our knowledge, copper doping has not been done in barium aluminates to explore fuel cell applications along with photocatalytic vitiation of organic dyes as pollutants. All the three prepared materials show good results in percentage degradation efficiency as Ba0.75Al0.20Cu0.05O3 showed 86.2 %, Ba0.75Al0.15Cu0.10O3 69.8% and Ba0.75Al0.10Cu0.15O3 with 63.77 % respectively.