High performance duckweed-derived carbon support to anchor NiFe electrocatalysts for efficient solar energy driven water splitting. Issue 39 (19th September 2018)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Kumar, Ashwani; Chaudhary, Dhirendra K.; Parvin, Sahanaz; Bhattacharyya, Sayan
• Is Part Of: Journal of materials chemistry. Volume 6:Issue 39(2018)
• Page Start: 18948
• Page End: 18959
• Publication Date: 2018-09-19
• Subjects: Materials -- Research -- Periodicals; Chemistry, Analytic -- Periodicals; Environmental sciences -- Research -- Periodicals; 543.0284
• DOI: 10.1039/c8ta06946h
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 2050-7488

Abstract

Abstract : NiFe nanoparticle electrocatalysts, supported on duckweed-derived carbon, splits water at 1.61 V and provides a 9.7% solar-to-hydrogen efficiency when connected to solar cells. Abstract : Solar-energy-driven overall water splitting using sustainable energy resources is extremely desirable for high purity hydrogen fuel production, and one of the ways is to couple cost-effective solar cells in series with earth-abundant electrocatalysts for oxygen and hydrogen evolution reactions, OER and HER, respectively. Developing highly efficient and earth-abundant electrocatalysts however remains one of the grand challenges. Herein, we developed biomass (duckweed, DW) derived N, S-doped mesoporous carbon matrix supported NiFe-alloy nanoparticles (NPs) as efficient electrocatalysts for overall water splitting. While the annealed catalyst required 267 mV overpotential at 10 mA cm −2 for the OER, the best HER performance was demonstrated by the unannealed electrocatalyst requiring 106 mV at −10 mA cm −2 in 1 M KOH. For overall water splitting, this couple required only 1.61 V cell voltage to deliver 10 mA cm −2, with continuous release of O2 and H2 gas bubbles for more than 200 h. On integrating with perovskite solar cells, the homologous DW electrolyzer exhibited unassisted solar-energy-driven overall water splitting with a solar-to-hydrogen (STH) conversion efficiency of 9.7%.