The high-efficiency electrochemical catalysis of nitrogen-doped carbon nanotubes materials modified with Cu-Fe oxide alloy nanoparticles for HER and ORR

High-efficiency and economical electrocatalysts for electrochemical water splitting are the core component of the renewable energy conversion. Herein, a simple and economical strategy is described to synthesize a series of metal oxide decorated nitrogen-doped carbon nanotubes materials (N-CNT@Cu-Fe Oxide Alloy NPs) by utilizing carbon nanotubes as the substrate carrier material. Additionally, the polypyrrole (PPy) was served as both the ni-trogen resource and the localizing agent to load the Cu-Fe oxide alloy. Moreover, the theoretical and test results indicated that the superior HER and ORR performance is mainly related to the synergistic effect between the nitrogen-doped CNT and metallic oxide alloy. In the series of catalysts we prepared, N-CNT@Cu-1-Fe-1 Oxide Alloy NPs exhibits more significant catalytic activity and better durability than other catalysts that we synthesized. Meanwhile, the catalyst shows the low Tafel slope of 68.28 mV dec(-1) for HER and reaches 10 mA cm(-2) at the overpotential of 375 mV. The K-L plot shows that the electron transfer number of N-CNF@Cu-1-Fe-1 Alloy NPs is 3.43.(C) 2022 Hydrogen Energy Publications LLC. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Automated summary

This study presents a simple and economical strategy to synthesize a series of metal oxide decorated nitrogen-doped carbon nanotubes materials with superior electrocatalytic performance using carbon nanotubes as the substrate carrier. The N-CNT@Cu-1-Fe-1 Oxide Alloy NPs exhibit more significant catalytic activity and better durability than other catalysts synthesized in this study.