The snowflake‐like structured NiO‐Cu ₂ O @Fe/Ru catalyst for hydrogen fuel production

Abstract

The hydrogen production researches as an alternative for fossil fuels, significantly increase in recent years. To obtain pure hydrogen, researches are focused on the electrolysis of water. One of the most important parts of these studies is to develop cathode material. In this study, electrodes are prepared by rolling slurry contained copper (I) oxide (Cu 2 O) and nickel (II) oxide (NiO) on a graphite support material. Then, iron (Fe) is electrochemically deposited on the prepared electrode. Finally, ruthenium (Ru) is doped electrochemically. Electrochemical impedance spectroscopy, cyclic voltammetry, chronoamperometry, and linear sweep voltammetry techniques are taken for each electrode. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and X-ray diffraction analyses are performed for surface characterization. SEM pictogram shows the snowflake-like structure for the best catalyst. It is found that the best molar ratio for Cu 2 O-NiO is 2:1, the best deposition times are 10 minutes and 30 seconds for Fe and Ru, respectively.