Aqueous Mg-Ion Supercapacitor and Bi-Functional Electrocatalyst Based on MgTiO₃ Nanoparticles

Supercapacitor and hydrogen-based fuel cells are cheap and environmental-friendly next-generation energy storage devices that are intended to replace Lithium-ion batteries. Metal oxide nanostructures having perovskite crystal structure have been found to exhibit unique electrochemical properties owing to its unique electronic band structure and multiple redox-active ions. Herein, MgTiO₃ nanoparticles (MTO-1) were synthesized by wet-chemical sol-gel technique with an average particle size of 50-55 nm, which exhibited superior supercapacitor performance of capacitance (C) = 25 F/g (at 0.25 A/g), energy density (E) = 17 Wh/kg, power density (P) = 275 W/kg and 82.41% capacitance retention (after 1000 cycles). Aqueous 1 M Mg(ClO₄)₂ solution was used as the electrolyte. MTO-1 revealed an overpotential () = 1.329 V and Tafel slope (b) = 374 mV/dec towards Oxygen Evolution Reaction (OER) electrocatalyst and exhibited = 0.914 V and b = 301.4 mV/dec towards Hydrogen Evolution Reaction (HER) electrocatalyst, both in presence of alkaline 1 M KOH solution, making these MgTiO₃ nanoparticles very promising for potential use in various technologically important electrochemical applications.