What is water splitting?
Water electrolysis is a viable technology to decompose water into chemical fuels, especially hydrogen, either using electricity (potential) or solar light which can be efficiently used in a fuel cell for power generation. Based on this technology, hydrogen is now considered as a green energy carrier. However, to generate hydrogen, some key factors must be addressed: properly choosing the materials for catalytic activity, designing the catalysts, and engineering the water-splitting devices.
Principles of water splitting
Generally, the electrochemical reduction of proton is mediated by an appropriate catalyst for which the most commonly used catalyst is platinum (Pt). However, Pt is very expensive which leads to the search for alternative catalyst materials with highest possible activity. TMDs and perovskite oxides are considered as the strong candidate for electrocatalyst materials. and various efforts have been made to engineer the TMDs and perovskite oxides such as creating edges, defects, and strain to improve the electrochemical activities.
Synthesis of electrocatalyst materials
Therefore, our work mostly focused on the synthesis of bi-function electrocatalyst materials using various types of TMDs such as MoS2, MoSe2 NbSe2 etc. and LaCoO3 to enhance the electrochemical activity for efficient hydrogen generation. We engineer the different bi-functional catalysts by creating surface edge sites, minimizing defects and strain to improve the HER and OER activities. We also study the long-term stability of the bifunctional catalysts suitable for on-field applications.
R. Amit; M.H Jeong, Y.I Noh, H.S Park, J.M Baik , K.J. Choi. Phase-tuned MoS2 and its Hybridization with Perovskite Oxide as Bifunctional Catalyst: A Rationale for Highly Stable and Efficient Water Splitting. ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces (2022)