Vanadium-Doped FeBP Microsphere Croissant for Significantly Enhanced Bi-Functional HER and OER Electrocatalyst

• Published in: Nanomaterials (Basel, Switzerland) Vol. 12; no. 19; p. 3283
• Main Authors: Burse, Shalmali, Kulkarni, Rakesh, Mandavkar, Rutuja, Habib, Md Ahasan, Lin, Shusen, Chung, Young-Uk, Jeong, Jae-Hun, Lee, Jihoon
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Switzerland MDPI AG 21.09.2022; MDPI
• Subjects: Adsorption; Analysis; Carrier density; Catalysts; Chemical synthesis; Climate change; Electrocatalysts; Electrochemistry; Electrodes; Electron transport; Fossil fuels; Green hydrogen; heteroatom doping; Hydrogen; hydrothermal approach; Identification and classification; Iron compounds; Methods; Microspheres; Morphology; Optimization; Phosphorus compounds; Properties; Seawater; soaking approach; Spectrum analysis; Splitting; Stability; Supply chains; Three dimensional flow; V-FeBP; Vanadium; Voltammetry; Water splitting; South Korea; United States > US; V-FeBP; heteroatom doping; soaking approach; water splitting; hydrothermal approach
• ISSN: 2079-4991; 2079-4991
• DOI: 10.3390/nano12193283

Ultra-fine hydrogen produced by electrochemical water splitting without carbon emission is a high-density energy carrier, which could gradually substitute the usage of traditional fossil fuels. The development of high-performance electrocatalysts at affordable costs is one of the major research priorities in order to achieve the large-scale implementation of a green hydrogen supply chain. In this work, the development of a vanadium-doped FeBP (V-FeBP) microsphere croissant (MSC) electrocatalyst is demonstrated to exhibit efficient bi-functional water splitting for the first time. The FeBP MSC electrode is synthesized by a hydrothermal approach along with the systematic control of growth parameters such as precursor concentration, reaction duration, reaction temperature and post-annealing, etc. Then, the heteroatom doping of vanadium is performed on the best FeBP MSC by a simple soaking approach. The best optimized V-FeBP MSC demonstrates the low HER and OER overpotentials of 52 and 180 mV at 50 mA/cm in 1 M KOH in a three-electrode system. In addition, the two-electrode system, i.e., V-FeBP || V-FeBP, demonstrates a comparable water-splitting performance to the benchmark electrodes of Pt/C || RuO in 1 M KOH. Similarly, exceptional performance is also observed in natural sea water. The 3D MSC flower-like structure provides a very high surface area that favors rapid mass/electron-transport pathways, which improves the electrocatalytic activity. Further, the V-FeBP electrode is examined in different pH solutions and in terms of its stability under industrial operational conditions at 60 °C in 6 M KOH, and it shows excellent stability.