Nickel oxide nanocatalyst obtained by a combined sol-gel and hydrothermal method for oxygen evolution reaction

Nickel oxide nanoparticles with a crystallite size of 4 nm were prepared by a two-step proteic sol-gel and hydrothermal method and evaluated as catalyst for oxygen evolution reaction. The nanocatalyst was characterized by using XRD, FT-IR, RAMAN, and UV-VIS techniques and electrochemically by linear scanning voltammetry (LSV), cyclic voltammetry (CV), and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS). The electrode prepared with the NiO nanoparticles showed an overpotential of 335 mV at 10 mA cm(-2), Tafel slope of 136 mV dec(-1), C-DL of 4.08 mF, ECSA of 102 cm(2), specific activity of 4.7 mA cm(- 2), and mass activity of 1600 A g(-1).

Automated summary

Nickel oxide nanoparticles with a crystallite size of 4 nm were prepared and used as catalyst for oxygen evolution reaction. The nanocatalyst was characterized and electrochemically evaluated using various techniques such as XRD, FT-IR, RAMAN, UV-VIS, LSV, CV, and EIS. The NiO nanoparticles exhibited promising catalytic properties with low overpotential, high Tafel slope, good charge transfer, high specific activity, and high mass activity.