Fabrication of γ-Fe2O3 Nanowires from Abundant and Low-cost Fe Plate for Highly Effective Electrocatalytic Water Splitting

Water splitting is thermodynamically uphill reaction, hence it cannot occur easily, and also highly complicated and challenging reaction in chemistry. In electrocatalytic water splitting, the combination of oxygen and hydrogen evolution reactions produces highly clean and sustainable hydrogen energy and which attracts research communities. Also, fabrication of highly active and low cost materials for water splitting is a major challenge. Therefore, in the present study, gamma -Fe2O3 nanowires were fabricated from highly available and cost-effective iron plate without any chemical modifications/doping onto the surface of the working electrode with high current density. The fabricated nanowires achieved the current density of 10mA/cm(2) at 1.88V vs. RHE with the scan rate of 50mV/sec. Stability measurements of the fabricated Fe2O3 nanowires were monitored up to 3275sec with the current density of 9.6mA/cm(2) at a constant potential of 1.7V vs. RHE and scan rate of 50mV/sec.