Electrocatalytic behavior of transition metal (Ni, Fe, Cr) doped metal oxide nanocomposites for oxygen evolution reaction

Now-a-days, transition metals have been earnestly exposed to energy harvesting field due to their advantages such as low cost, high catalytic activity, high stability in both basic as well as acidic media. Co3O4 based electrocatalysts have grabbed the attention of researchers due to their high catalytic activity towards oxygen evolution reaction (OER). In this work, a facile hydrothermal method was adopted as the fabrication technique of synthesizing Co3O4 and the as-prepared metal oxide nanocomposite was further devised by adding the appropriate amount of transition metal dopants to investigate their effect on the catalytic activity following their electrochemical behaviors. The synthesized transition metal doped metal oxides were systematically characterized by different techniques. The electrochemical studies were carried out and Co3O4 was found to exhibit a high OER activity in alkaline medium. With the further addition of dopants such as chromium, iron and nickel, the catalytic activity of Co3O4 was enhanced, and among them, the Cr-Co3O4 shows the best electrocatalytic activity followed by Ni-Co3O4, Fe-Co3O4 and Pure Co3O4.