Preparation of PrCoO3/CuO nanocomposites on the g-C3N4 substrate for performance comparison of hydrogen storage capacity

Electrode materials for electrochemical hydrogen storage (EHS) based on PrCoO3 Perovskite, CuO, and Graphitic carbon nitride were produced through the sol-gel process. Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscopes showed the formation of flower-like structures assembled with the presence of PrCoO3 nanoparticles on the scaly-shaped CuO on the g-C3N4 nanosheets as substrate. The effect of natural fuel of Japanese parsnip was compared against using maleic acid in the sol-gel synthesis of PrCoO3. The Japanese parsnip led to the formation of bulk cubic structures, but the maleic acid causes the formation of nanoparticles with an average size of 54 nm. Also, X-ray diffraction for synthesized perovskite-based samples shows the pure phase of PrCoO3 for the calcined sample at 700 °C. However, the resultant samples at 600 and 800 °C have impurity phases of PrO2 and Co3O4. Three-electrode cells were collected and galvanostatic cycling was applied at a charge-discharge current of 1 mA and cyclic voltammograms of hydrogen adsorption/desorption procedures were investigated. The hydrogen storage capacity for PrCoO3/CuO (800 mAhg−1) and PrCoO3/CuO/g-C3N4 (1200 mAhg−1) was compared by pristine PrCoO3 nanostructures (450 mAhg−1). The performance improvements of PrCoO3/CuO/g-C3N4 possibly will contribute to endorsing its usage in the electrochemical hydrogen storage field.