Insights into impacts of Co3O4-CeO2 nanocomposites on the electrochemical hydrogen storage performance of g-C3N4: Pechini preparation, structural design and comparative study

Abstract

The present work reports one-pot modified Pechini synthesis of porous Co3O4-CeO2 (CC) nanostructures with the templating environment of succinic acid, and further it is decorated with graphitic carbon nitride (g-C3N4 or CN) substrate. Interfacial architecture of the multicomponent nanocomposites can promote the synergistic effect by adjusting the weight percent of CC guest (30%, 50% and 70%) into CN host. The consequent changes in the compositional, morphological features and porosity of the resulting composites are unraveled by a combination of XRD, Raman, FE-SEM, HR-TEM, and BET analyses. Remarkably, the redox reactivity and considerable electronic conductivity of nanostructured electrode materials ascertains by cyclic voltammetry (CV) and chronopotentiometry charge–discharge (CCD) techniques in 2.0 M KOH medium. Fabricated Co3O4–CeO2/g-C3N4 (CC-CNx%) nanocomposites proved as the energetic electrode materials for realizing hydrogen storage performance at current of 1 mA. It is demonstrated that the CC/Cu platforms can produce the discharge efficiency of 619.25 mAhg−1 after 15 cycles. However, among the various adding, the ternary nanocomposites with 50.0 wt% CC nanoparticles achieved the higher discharge capacity of about 1020.53 mAhg−1 in three electrode cell. The coupling effect of interfacial architecture presented here suggests alternative insights into constructing uniformly nanocomposites for highly efficient energy storage applications.