Overall Water Splitting by Bio-Modification of Fe3O4 with Co–Ni Complexes

Abstract

For years, hydrogen has found much interest as a substitute for fossil fuels but the high cost of green hydrogen production has led to a small share of the daily energy consumed. To overcome this issue, various low-cost electrocatalysts have been designed and reported to facilitate water splitting and hydrogen production. In this study, by using polyphenols extracts from Camellia sinensis plant and folic acid along with magnetic cores, we designed and synthesized a novel electrocatalyst with high ability of water splitting reactions. The catalyst was characterized by using transmission electron microscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction, FTIR spectroscopy and thermogravimetric techniques. The catalyst exhibited high performance for overall water splitting. The overpotential of 245 mV and 346 mV (for 100 mA cm–2) with a Tafel slopes of 39 and 86 mV dec–1 were obtained for OER and HER, respectively. The Faradic efficiency for both OER and HER was calculated being close to 100%.