Ultrathin Metal Oxides as Oxygen Evolution Catalysts in Water
Class
Article
Department
Nutrition, Dietetics, and Food Sciences
Faculty Mentor
Yujie Sun
Presentation Type
Poster Presentation
Abstract
Electrochemical splitting of water to hydrogen and oxygen with renewable energy input represents a key route to store renewable energy in the form of chemical bonds. Due to the nature of multi-electron and multi-proton transfer, both of the half reactions of water splitting, H2 evolution reaction and O2 evolution reaction, need catalysts to accelerate their reaction rates. Among the two half reactions, O2 evolution reaction is the bottleneck of the whole water splitting process. Our research aims at exploring ultrathin two-dimensional metal oxides as competent OER catalysts. Metal oxides, such as Co2O3 and NiO, have been reported to be active for oxygen evolution catalysis. Decreasing the thickness of those metal oxides will induce quantum confinement effect which alters the surface electronic structures of catalysts and result in enhanced catalytic activity. However, there is no versatile method available for the preparation of ultrathin nanosheets of 1st-row transition metal oxides. Our project explores the employment of microwave irradiation to synthesize a large group of ultrathin metal oxides. The prepared metal oxide nanosheets are characterized by various analytical techniques, such as scanning electron microscopy and atomic force microscopy. Finally, a suite of electrochemical experiments, such as polarization, cyclic voltammetry, and controlled potential electrolysis, are conducted to evaluate the catalytic performance of prepared ultrathin metal oxide nanosheets.
Start Date
4-9-2015 1:30 PM
Ultrathin Metal Oxides as Oxygen Evolution Catalysts in Water
Electrochemical splitting of water to hydrogen and oxygen with renewable energy input represents a key route to store renewable energy in the form of chemical bonds. Due to the nature of multi-electron and multi-proton transfer, both of the half reactions of water splitting, H2 evolution reaction and O2 evolution reaction, need catalysts to accelerate their reaction rates. Among the two half reactions, O2 evolution reaction is the bottleneck of the whole water splitting process. Our research aims at exploring ultrathin two-dimensional metal oxides as competent OER catalysts. Metal oxides, such as Co2O3 and NiO, have been reported to be active for oxygen evolution catalysis. Decreasing the thickness of those metal oxides will induce quantum confinement effect which alters the surface electronic structures of catalysts and result in enhanced catalytic activity. However, there is no versatile method available for the preparation of ultrathin nanosheets of 1st-row transition metal oxides. Our project explores the employment of microwave irradiation to synthesize a large group of ultrathin metal oxides. The prepared metal oxide nanosheets are characterized by various analytical techniques, such as scanning electron microscopy and atomic force microscopy. Finally, a suite of electrochemical experiments, such as polarization, cyclic voltammetry, and controlled potential electrolysis, are conducted to evaluate the catalytic performance of prepared ultrathin metal oxide nanosheets.