Event date:
May 21 2021 11:30 am

Electrodeposition of NiCu Bimetallic Nanoporous Foam for Electrochemical Hydrogen Evolution

Supervisor
Dr, Falak Sher
Student
Andleeb Mukhtiar
Venue
Zoom Meetings (Online)
Event
MS Thesis defense
Abstract
Continuously increasing energy demand and environmental pollution related problems associated with the fossil fuels have diverted the attention of scientific community towards the renewable energy technologies. The electrocatalytic water splitting for the production of clean H2 gas, in conjunction with other renewable energy sources like photovoltaics, has been widely viewed as a promising strategy for the future energy mix. Water electrocatalysis process comprises of two major processes of hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) at the cathode and oxygen evolution reaction (OER) at the anode. Despite significant progress in this field, the overall efficiency of H2 production through electrocatalytic water splitting is still around 4-6%. Most of the electrocatalysts developed for HER and OER contain noble metals and their oxides and thus are very expensive. Nanoporous metallic self-supporting electrocatalysts have been developed recently and are reported to show excellent electrocatalytic properties. In this research work, we synthesized efficient self-supported bimetallic NiCu electrocatalysts using electrodeposition technique and characterized them using powder X-ray diffraction and scanning electron microscopy. We prepared NiCu bimetallic electrocatalysts of varying compositions on FTO substrates using hydrogen bubbling as template. The nanostructured NiCu.b(Ni:Cu=6:1 at -8mV for 300s) catalyst with good morphologies (dendritic and pyramidal shaped cluster) was obtained with good electrocatalytic activity for HER. Electrochemical measurements of NiCu.b(Ni:Cu=6:1) show an overpotential of 61 mV and a Tafel slope of 335 mV/dec for HER with more than 14 h of stability in alkaline medium .NiCu.b.(6:1) provided an interesting insight on a route to improve the HER performance in alkaline medium and can be further investigated for more applications.

Meeting Link: https://lums-edu-pk.zoom.us/j/93320055066?pwd=ZDFWcnRkbTgzWTJiekhEcGxaa0dHZz09

Meeting ID: 933 2005 5066

Passcode: 021605