Abstract
The breakthrough in water electrolysis technology for the sustainable production of H2, considered as a future fuel, is currently hampered by the development of tough electrocatalytic materials. We report a new strategy of fabricating conducting polymer-derived nanostructured materials to accelerate the electrocatalytic hydrogen evolution reaction (HER), oxygen evolution reaction (OER), and water splitting. Extended physical (XRD, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX)) and electrochemical (cyclic voltammetry (CV), linear sweep voltammetry (LSV), electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS)) methods were merged to precisely characterize the as-synthesized iridium and ruthenium modified polyaniline (PANI) materials and interrogate their efficiency. The presence of Ir(+III) cations during polymerization leads to the formation of Ir metal nanoparticles, while Ru(+III) induces the formation of RuO2 oxide nanoparticles by thermal treatment; they are therefore methods for the on-demand production of oxide or metal nanostructured electrocatalysts. The findings from using 0.5 M H2SO4 highlight an ultrafast electrochemical kinetic of the material PANI-Ir for HER (36 − 0 = 36 mV overpotential to reach 10 mA cm−2 at 21 mV dec−1), and of PANI-Ru for OER (1.47 − 1.23 = 240 mV overpotential to reach 10 mA cm−2 at 47 mV dec−1), resulting in an efficient water splitting exactly at its thermoneutral cell voltage of 1.45 V, and satisfactory durability (96 h).
Highlights
The designing principles of electrode materials for electrochemical or electrocatalytic applications involve a host and guest approach between active sites and the support linked by a contact
We report a new strategy of fabricating conducting polymer-derived nanostructured materials to accelerate the electrocatalytic hydrogen evolution reaction (HER), oxygen evolution reaction (OER), and water splitting
Recent studies show that the combination of polyaniline and metallic species (Ni, Co, Mo) produces nanostructured materials with high performance regarding the electrocatalytic hydrogen evolution reaction (HER), oxygen evolution reaction (OER), and water splitting [2,3,7,8]
Summary
The designing principles of electrode materials for electrochemical or electrocatalytic applications involve a host and guest approach between active sites (where the reaction takes place) and the support (electrons conduction from or to substrate) linked by a contact (mechanical strength and electronic transfer). The interest towards conducting polymer (nano)structures is growing yearly in (bio)electrochemistry as either precursors of freestanding electrocatalysts [2,3] or a supports [4,5,6] for active sites based on enzyme/abiotic catalysts For both purposes, recent studies show that the combination of polyaniline (a conducting polymer) and metallic species (Ni, Co, Mo) produces nanostructured materials with high performance regarding the electrocatalytic hydrogen evolution reaction (HER), oxygen evolution reaction (OER), and water splitting [2,3,7,8]. Given that HER and OER require either metallic or oxidized surfaces, the remaining major challenge is to find a unified method of synthesis that would allow the obtention of either metallic or oxidic nanostructured materials by adjusting the chemical content of the synthesis To address this challenge, we report in this contribution a strategy based on the polymerization of aniline in the presence of Ru(III) and Ir(III) to synthesize PANI-derived RuO2 or Ir nanoparticles. Water was produced from a Milli-Q Millipore source (New York, NY, USA) (18.2 MΩ cm at 20 ◦C)
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