Exfoliated graphite with spinel oxide as an effective hybrid electrocatalyst for water splitting

Malgorzata Skorupska; Kinga Kowalska; Magdalena Tyc; Anna Ilnicka; Mariusz Szkoda; Jerzy P Lukaszewicz

doi:10.1039/d3ra00589e

Exfoliated graphite with spinel oxide as an effective hybrid electrocatalyst for water splitting

RSC Adv. 2023 Mar 31;13(15):10215-10220. doi: 10.1039/d3ra00589e. eCollection 2023 Mar 27.

Authors

Malgorzata Skorupska¹, Kinga Kowalska¹, Magdalena Tyc¹, Anna Ilnicka¹, Mariusz Szkoda^{2

3}, Jerzy P Lukaszewicz^{1

4}

Affiliations

¹ Faculty of Chemistry, Nicolaus Copernicus University in Torun Gagarina 7 87-100 Torun Poland ailnicka@umk.pl.
² Faculty of Chemistry, Department of Chemistry and Technology of Functional Materials, Gdańsk University of Technology Narutowicza 11/12 80-233 Gdańsk Poland.
³ Advanced Materials Center, Gdańsk University of Technology Narutowicza 11/12 80-233 Gdańsk Poland.
⁴ Centre for Modern Interdisciplinary Technologies, Nicolaus Copernicus University in Torun Wilenska 4 87-100 Torun Poland.

Abstract

The aim of the conducted research was to develop hybrid nanostructures formed from MnCo₂O₄ and exfoliated graphite. Carbon added during the synthesis allowed for obtaining a well-distributed MnCo₂O₄ particle size with exposed active sites contributing to the increased electric conductivity. The influence of the weight ratios of carbon to a catalyst for hydrogen and oxygen evolution reactions was investigated. The new bifunctional catalysts for water splitting were tested in an alkaline medium with excellent electrochemical performance and very good working stability. The results for hybrid samples show better electrochemical performance compared to the pure MnCo₂O₄. The highest electrocatalytic activity was for sample MnCo₂O₄/EG (2/1), where the value of the overpotential was 1.66 V at 10 mA cm^-2, and also for this sample a low value of Tafel slope (63 mV dec^-1) was denoted.