Ni-doped ZnO nanocrystalline material for electrocatalytic oxygen reduction reaction

Abstract

Less expensive catalyst is highly required for the ORR half-cell reactions in the fuel cell. From now, the progress of the less expensive, active, potential ORR catalysts are much needed for the fuel cell technology compared to expensive, less abundant Pt based materials. In our investigation, less expensive and easily abundant nickel (Ni) have been doped into the nanocrystalline ZnO architecture were synthesized for the use in ORR as electrocatalyst. Influence of nickel doping into nanocrystalline ZnO nanomaterials were investigated by Raman, Photoluminescence, FTIR spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM). XRD results proved that, the material is pure crystalline after and before doping. In our synthesized procedure, there is no significant changes in the morphology after Ni doped ZnO. The PL results also supported the integration of Ni into zinc oxide (ZnO) nanoscale material, increasing the vacancy of the synthesized ZnO nanostructured materials. After successful formation of the Ni doped ZnO and without doped ZnO has shown the heightened electrocatalytic bustle. Nanostructured Ni doped ZnO has shown significant ORR activity in alkaline solution (0.1 M KOH). The enriched movement of the Ni doped ZnO indicates that the synthesized materials in our process can be utilised as the cheap and effective electrocatalyst in the ORR fuel cell reactions.