Sintesi e Caratterizzazione di Materiali Compositi a base di Seleniuri Ternari di Ni, Fe e Co per Elettrolisi dell'Acqua

Nowadays, demand and consumption for energy are increased considerably, together with improved living standard and growing population. Therefore, growing interest for alternative forms of energy and non-fossil fuels has implied great effort in research for development of functional materials for such scopes. Among all, hydrogen represents a strategic fuel in order to achieve sustainable development and meet energy demand. In this context, water splitting has been investigated as a clean and effective way to produce hydrogen. However, the partner reaction of hydrogen evolution reaction (HER), called oxygen evolution reaction (OER), is sluggish and complex, and development of novel, high performing, cost effective catalysts for it is still challenging. To settle this issue, herein, a composite nanostructured material based on Ni, Co and Fe selenides supported on carbon fibre (CF) has been developed and tested for OER in alkaline electrolyte. By tuning metals’ composition and selenide conversion conditions, a good electrocatalyst for OER was obtained with a Tafel slope of 100 mV dec-1 and a low overpotential of 210 mV at 10 mA cm-2. Furthermore, the electrocatalyst demonstrates a remarkable catalytic stability for over 30 hrs. The improved OER performances with respect to corresponding hydroxide can be attributed the modified electronic structure due to the synergistic effect among different metallic elements.