NiO@conducting polymer electrocatalyst for hydrazine-assisted oxygen evolution reaction through water splitting

Abstract

Abstract The energetic suitability of electrochemical water splitting is hindered by the sluggish kinetics of oxygen evolution reaction (OER). The electrochemical oxidation of hydrazine (HyzOR) preceding OER is a straightforward approach to generate H2 with lower overpotential and fast kinetics. Herein, a single-step synthesis approach for a nickel oxide nano-catalyst (NiO) mixed with a conducting polymers mixture of poly (m-toluidine) and poly (3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) modified carbon paste electrode (CPE) is presented. Compared with CPE, NiO, and polymer mixture, the presented composite shows higher electrocatalytic activity for both HyzOR and OER in alkaline medium of KOH (HyzOR-OER). The presented composite exhibits a stable current response for hydrazine-assisted water splitting during exhaustive electrolysis. Also, it shows relatively low activation energy of 2.90 kJ.mol− 1 that reflects the facilitation of HyzOR-OER at this surface. The hydrazine-assisted water splitting by this surface is a committed feasible approach for low cost and high efficiency H2 production.