FeNi2Se4 – Reduced Graphene Oxide Nanocomposite: Enhancing Electrocatalytic Activity for Water Oxidation through Synergistic Effects

Abstract

Water splitting using earth abundant and environmentally benign catalyst is critical for renewable energy technologies. In spite of tremendous efforts to develop a catalyst with low cost, high activity and stability, it remains a challenge to match the performance of platinum group catalyst. In this presentation a hybrid material FeNi2Se4 supported on nitrogen doped reduced graphene oxide (FeNi2Se4-NrGO) nanoparticles as an efficient and dependable electrocatalyst for oxygen evolution reaction (OER) under alkaline conditions will be discussed. Fig. 1(a) shows the TEM image of catalyst where FeNi2Se4 is nicely distributed on NrGO matrix. The constructed hybrid catalyst is capable of catalyzing water oxidation at a small overpotential of 170 mV @ 10 mAcm-2, compared to FeNi2Se4 which has comparatively less catalytic activity (Fig. 1b). This study gives a new direction in the selenide based hybrid catalysts, which may be extended to prepare other ternary based selenide hybrids for a broad range of technological applications. The catalysts were characterized using TEM, SEM, EDX, XRD and XPS for structure, morphology, elemental compositions, and electronic states. Catalytic activity was studied from detailed electrochemical measurements including linear sweep voltammetry, chronopotentiometry and electrochemical surface area. The detailed results will be presented in the meeting. Figure 1