Sonochemical synthesized BaMoO4/ZnO nanocomposites as electrode materials: A comparative study on GO and GQD employed in hydrogen storage

Abstract

Due to poor rate proficiency and electrochemical capacity of transition metal oxides, production electrode materials as operative way to develop the electrochemical performance is a crucial strategy to make sure the great electroactive sites and fast electron/ion diffusion route. In order to solve this problem, carbon-based nanocomposites as conductive substrates are applied. The nanostructured BaMoO4/ZnO was produced by sonochemical method in the presence of tween 20 as stabilizing agent. Effect of graphene quantum dots (GQDs) and graphene oxide (GO) for developing hydrogen capacity of BaMoO4/ZnO was studied by providing representative composites of BaMoO4/ZnO-GQDs and BaMoO4/ZnO-GO. For this purpose, GQDs was synthesized using green source of Spiraea crenata and the GO provided by commercial company. The structural analysis shows preparation of scales-like morphology of BaMoO4/ZnO without any impurities through SEM, TEM, XRD, EDS and FT-IR characterization data. Also, the specific surface area for BaMoO4/ZnO-GQDs (11 m2/g) and BaMoO4/ZnO-GO (124 m2/g) nanocomposites increased by comparing to BaMoO4/ZnO (9.1 m2/g). The resultant nanocomposites used as new active compounds for applying in hydrogen storage strategies using cyclic voltammetry and chronopotentiometry tests. Comprehensively, the hydrogen capacitance after 15 cycles was demonstrated on the nanostructured BaMoO4/ZnO about 129 mAhg−1. It demanded the maximum capacitance for BaMoO4/ZnO-GQDs and BaMoO4/ZnO-GO nanocomposites were 284 and 213 mAhg−1 respectively, which was higher than the initial nanostructured BaMoO4/ZnO. It was exposed from the carbon based structured that; the endorsed electrochemical hydrogen storage (EHS) performance is ascribed to the reaction of the redox pair of Mo6+ /Mo5+ at the active sites throughout the EHS procedure. This study delivers a novel plan and potential sorption electrode materials to progress the intrinsic action of conductive compounds.