Here, we report the
synthesis of nickel nanoparticles thermally
encapsulated in multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) and its utility
in alkaline water splitting by combining with composite thermoset
anion-exchange membrane. Ni@MWCNT displayed both oxygen evolution
reaction (OER) and hydrogen evolution reaction (HER). It provided
10 mA cm
–2
current density at an overpotential of
300 mV for OER and 254 mV for HER on a glassy carbon electrode, respectively.
Base-catalyzed N-methly-4-piperidone-formaldehyde-based prepolymer
was grafted on to poly(vinyl alcohol) and cross-linked via thermal
annealing followed by quaternization using methyl iodide to obtain
thermoset anion exchange membrane (NMPi). Composite NMPi membranes
were synthesized using additives tetraethyl orthosilicate (TEOS) and
zirconium oxychloride. The water splitting performance on the fabricated
membrane electrode assembly was tested and compared with commercially
available Neosepta membrane. The obtained faradic efficacy of the
water splitting was 94.33% for ZrO
2
-NMPi membrane followed
by 80.23%, 77.70%, and 65.10% for SiO
2
-NMPi, NMPi, and
Neosepta membranes, respectively. The best membrane ZrO
2
-NMPi achieved maximum current density of ∼0.776 A cm
–2
in 5 M KOH electrolyte at 80 °C and 2 V applied
constant voltage. The excellent alkaline stability of MEA indicates
its potential utility in hydrogen generation applications.
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