CZTS Decorated on Graphene Oxide as an Efficient Electrocatalyst for High-Performance Hydrogen Evolution Reaction

Renuka V Digraskar; Vijay S Sapner; Shivsharan M Mali; Shankar S Narwade; Anil V Ghule; Bhaskar R Sathe

doi:10.1021/acsomega.8b03587

CZTS Decorated on Graphene Oxide as an Efficient Electrocatalyst for High-Performance Hydrogen Evolution Reaction

ACS Omega. 2019 Apr 26;4(4):7650-7657. doi: 10.1021/acsomega.8b03587. eCollection 2019 Apr 30.

Authors

Renuka V Digraskar¹, Vijay S Sapner¹, Shivsharan M Mali¹, Shankar S Narwade¹, Anil V Ghule², Bhaskar R Sathe¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Chemistry, Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar Marathwada University, Aurangabad 431004, Maharashtra, India.
² Department of Chemistry, Shivaji University, Kolhapur 416004, Maharashtra, India.

Abstract

Cu₂ZnSnS₄ (CZTS) was synthesized by the sonochemical method using 2-methoxyethanol as the solvent and subsequently decorated onto graphene oxide (GO synthesized by the modified Hummers' method) using two different approaches such as in situ growth and ex situ synthesis followed by deposition. Preliminary characterizations indicated that the synthesized CZTS belongs to the kesterite structure with a sphere-like morphology. The in situ-synthesized CZTS/GO (I-CZTS/GO) composite is used as an efficient electrocatalyst for hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) which revealed superior electrocatalytic activity with a reduced overpotential (39.3 mV at 2 mA cm^-2), Tafel slope (70 mV dec^-1), a larger exchange current density of 908 mA cm^-2, and charge transfer resistance (5 Ω), significantly different from pure CZTS. Besides, the I-CZTS/GO composite exhibits highest HER performance with high current stability of which shows no noticeable degradation after i-t amperometry. The catalytic activity demonstrates that the I-CZTS/GO composite could be a promising electrocatalyst in hydrogen production from their cooperative interactions.