The large consumption of natural fossil fuels and their detrimental impact on the environment are driving the exploration of clean and renewable energy. Hydrogen is an ideal carrier for renewable energy and plays a vital role in promoting sustainable energy development for human society. Water electrolysis is deemed as a green, facile, and highly efficient technology for the large-scale production of high-purity molecular hydrogen. Noble metal-based catalysts, such as platinum (Pt), iridium dioxide (IrO2), and ruthenium dioxide (RuO2), are currently used for water splitting applications, but extremely costly. Here we discuss low-cost transition metal-based copper iron selenides as promising electrocatalyst to achieve better electrocatalytic activity for overall water splitting by engineering the bandgaps and modifying the surface nanostructures. We show Synthesis, characterization and electrochemical measurements of copper iron selenides (CuxFe1-xSe2) [X ranges between 0 to 1]. Materials were synthesized by hydrothermal and/or solvothermal methods and characterized using powder X-ray diffraction (XRD) technique, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). Electrochemical measurements including cyclic voltammetry (CV), linear sweep voltammetry (LSV), and chronopotentiometry were carried out using three-electrode method. Experimental results indicate the catalytic activity of water electrolysis for hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) and oxygen evolution reaction (OER). Iron doping on copper selenide improve the performance of electrocatalytic activity and Cu0.6Fe0.4Se2 exhibit superior performance among the investigated iron doped copper selenides.

Electrochemical water splitting using earth abundant copper iron selenides (CuxFe1-xSe2) for energy storage applications

ACS Fall 2021

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