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Nano Research 2022, 15(6): 4799-4806 https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-021-3802-4
Research Article | Issue | Published: 09 September 2021

Low-cost high entropy alloy (HEA) for high-efficiency oxygen evolution reaction (OER)

Show Author's Information Lalita Sharma1,§,  Nirmal Kumar Katiyar2,3,§,  Arko Parui4,§,  Rakesh Das5,  Ritesh Kumar4,  Chandra Sekhar Tiwary5( ),  Abhisek K. Singh4( ),  Aditi Halder1( ),  Krishanu Biswas2( )
School of Basic Sciences, Advanced Materials Research Centre (AMRC), Indian Institute of Technology Mandi (H.P), Kamand, Mandi 175005, India
Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, Kanpur 208016, India
School of Engineering, London South Bank University, London, SE10 AA, UK
Materials Research Centre, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore 560012, India
Metallurgical and Materials Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur, Kharagpur 382355, India

§ Lalita Sharma, Nirmal Kumar Katiyar, and Arko Parui contributed equally to this work.

Keywords:
electrocatalyst, oxygen evolution reaction, high entropy alloy, cyclic voltammetry activation, nanocrystalline catalyst
Topics:
Oxygen evolution reaction
Cite this article:
Sharma L, Kumar Katiyar N, Parui A, et al. Low-cost high entropy alloy (HEA) for high-efficiency oxygen evolution reaction (OER). Nano Research, 2022, 15(6): 4799-4806. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-021-3802-4
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Abstract Full text Electronic supplementary material About this article

Oxygen evolution reaction (OER) is the key step involved both in water splitting devices and rechargeable metal-air batteries, and hence, there is an urgent need for a stable and low-cost material for efficient OER. In the present investigation, Co-Fe-Ga-Ni-Zn (CFGNZ) high entropy alloy (HEA) has been utilized as a low-cost electrocatalyst for OER. Herein, after cyclic voltammetry activation, CFGNZ-nanoparticles (NPs) are covered with oxidized surface and form high entropy (oxy) hydroxides (HEOs), exhibiting a low overpotential of 370 mV to achieve a current density of 10 mA/cm2 with a small Tafel slope of 71 mV/dec. CFGNZ alloy has higher electrochemical stability in comparison to state-of-the art RuO2 electrocatalyst as no degradation has been observed up to 10 h of chronoamperometry. Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) studies after 10 h of long-term chronoamperometry test showed no change in the crystal structure, which confirmed the high stability of CFGNZ. The density functional theory (DFT) based calculations show that the closeness of d(p)-band centers to the Fermi level (EF) plays a major role in determining active sites.This work highlights the tremendous potential of CFGNZ HEA for OER, which is the primary reaction involved in water splitting.


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Electronic supplementary material
About this article

Low-cost high entropy alloy (HEA) for high-efficiency oxygen evolution reaction (OER)

Show Author's information Lalita Sharma1,§, Nirmal Kumar Katiyar2,3,§, Arko Parui4,§, Rakesh Das5, Ritesh Kumar4, Chandra Sekhar Tiwary5( ), Abhisek K. Singh4( ), Aditi Halder1( ), Krishanu Biswas2( )
School of Basic Sciences, Advanced Materials Research Centre (AMRC), Indian Institute of Technology Mandi (H.P), Kamand, Mandi 175005, India
Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, Kanpur 208016, India
School of Engineering, London South Bank University, London, SE10 AA, UK
Materials Research Centre, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore 560012, India
Metallurgical and Materials Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur, Kharagpur 382355, India

§ Lalita Sharma, Nirmal Kumar Katiyar, and Arko Parui contributed equally to this work.

Abstract

Oxygen evolution reaction (OER) is the key step involved both in water splitting devices and rechargeable metal-air batteries, and hence, there is an urgent need for a stable and low-cost material for efficient OER. In the present investigation, Co-Fe-Ga-Ni-Zn (CFGNZ) high entropy alloy (HEA) has been utilized as a low-cost electrocatalyst for OER. Herein, after cyclic voltammetry activation, CFGNZ-nanoparticles (NPs) are covered with oxidized surface and form high entropy (oxy) hydroxides (HEOs), exhibiting a low overpotential of 370 mV to achieve a current density of 10 mA/cm2 with a small Tafel slope of 71 mV/dec. CFGNZ alloy has higher electrochemical stability in comparison to state-of-the art RuO2 electrocatalyst as no degradation has been observed up to 10 h of chronoamperometry. Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) studies after 10 h of long-term chronoamperometry test showed no change in the crystal structure, which confirmed the high stability of CFGNZ. The density functional theory (DFT) based calculations show that the closeness of d(p)-band centers to the Fermi level (EF) plays a major role in determining active sites.This work highlights the tremendous potential of CFGNZ HEA for OER, which is the primary reaction involved in water splitting.

Keywords: electrocatalyst, oxygen evolution reaction, high entropy alloy, cyclic voltammetry activation, nanocrystalline catalyst

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Publication history
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Acknowledgements

Publication history

Received: 21 May 2021
Revised: 13 July 2021
Accepted: 03 August 2021
Published: 09 September 2021
Issue date: June 2022

Copyright

© Tsinghua University Press and Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2021

Acknowledgements

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thanks SERB-DST for financial support to carry out this research. We would also like to thank the Imaging centre facilities at the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur for TEM imaging. We acknowledge Advanced Materials Research Centre (AMRC), IIT Mandi to provide the sophisticated instrumentation facilities. A. P., R. K., and A. K. S. acknowledge Materials Research Centre, Solid State and Structural Chemistry Unit, and Supercomputer Education and Research Centre for providing the computational facilities. A. P., R. K., and A. K. S. also acknowledge the support from the Institute of Eminence (IoE) MHRD grant of the Indian Institute of Science. N. K. K. acknowledges the Newton Fellowship award from the Royal Society UK (NIF\R1\191571). C. S. T. thanks MHRD STARS for funding. C. S. T. acknowledges Science and Engineering Research Board of the Department of Science and Technology, Government of India, for support through the core research grant and Ramanujan Fellowship. C. S. T. acknowledges AOARD grant no. FA2386-19-1-4039.

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