Facile hydrothermal synthesis of highly durable binary and ternary cobalt nickel copper oxides for high-performance oxygen evolution reaction

The development of efficient electrocatalysts for renewable and sustainable energy systems is of great importance for many industrial applications. Among various energy systems, electrochemical water splitting (EWS) utilizes electrocatalysts to produce hydrogen(H2) as clean fuel. However, the electrocatalytic water oxidation system offers challenges such as sluggish kinetics of the reaction, high cost of the catalysts, and confined scalability. Therefore, the present study focuses on the design of efficient electrocatalysts by fabricating a series of binary i.e., Cu–Co and ternary i.e., Cu–Co–Ni metal-oxides on the Ni-foam substrate through a facile hydrothermal process and its application as electrode materials for oxygen evolution reaction (OER). The fabricated electrodes were characterized by powdered X-ray diffraction (pXRD) analysis, Fourier transforms infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM), energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX), and high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HR-TEM). linear sweep voltammetry (LSV), Tafel slope, and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) were employed to study OER and the results revealed that the binary CCo4 and ternary CCoN8 oxides, with optimized composition, showed overpotentials of 439 and 411 mV at a current density of 50 mA cm−2, in 1 M KOH respectively. An improvement in the electrocatalytic properties of these catalysts has been linked with the synergistic effect of Cu, Co, and Ni metal ions. The least overpotential of ternary metal composite CCoN8 proved that the incorporation of p-type NiO further enhanced the efficiency of electrocatalysts for water oxidation. The chronoamperometry results revealed that the electrocatalyst offered excellent stability for continuous oxygen production 30 h reaction time.