FeHf Binary Hydroxide/Oxide Nanostructures as Catalysts for Oxygen Evolution.

Area of Science:

• Materials Science
• Electrochemistry
• Nanotechnology

Background:

• Developing efficient electrocatalysts is crucial for energy conversion technologies.
• Metal hydroxides/oxides are promising candidates for oxygen evolution reactions (OER).
• Controlled synthesis of multimetallic nanocomposites is challenging.

Purpose of the Study:

• To present pulsed electrodeposition (PED) for synthesizing FeHf-BH nanocomposites.
• To demonstrate controlled variation of Fe and Hf content in the deposited materials.
• To investigate the OER activity of FeHf-BH nanocomposites.

Main Methods:

• Pulsed electrodeposition (PED) from aqueous nitrate baths.
• Characterization using SEM, EDS, XRD, Raman, and XPS.
• Electrochemical analysis of oxygen evolution reaction (OER) in alkaline media.

Main Results:

• Controlled Fe (5.9-49.9 at.%) and Hf (2.4-58.7 at.%) content achieved.
• Deposited materials are agglomerated nanoparticles (50-150 nm).
• Optimized FeHf-BH (11.9 at.% Hf) shows excellent OER activity (1.63 V onset, 47 mV/dec Tafel slope).

Conclusions:

• PED is a scalable method for designing FeHf-BH nanocomposites.
• FeHf-BH materials exhibit high OER performance.
• This approach can be extended to other multimetallic hydroxide/oxide systems.