Effects of B-Site Doping on Double Perovskite Structure Materials for Oxygen Evolution Reactions

In water-splitting electrochemical devices, oxygen evolution reaction (OER) is the most important reaction process because the overall cell efficiency depends strongly on the reaction rate of the OER [1-3]. Over the past decades, noble metal catalysts such as iridium oxide (IrO₂), ruthenium oxide (RuO₂) and carbon-supported platinum (Pt/C) have shown excellent performances for the OER. However, these noble metal based catalysts have drawbacks for using catalysts of the water-splitting devices due to high cost and limited durability [4-5].

Recently, in order to overcome these technical issues, several perovskite structure-based oxides, which are used as the cathode materials of solid oxide fuel cells, are considered for replacing expensive noble metals [6-7]. To achieve high efficient electrocatalyst for OERs, in this work, transition metals such as Fe, Ni and Cu are doped in the B-site of ABO₃ perovskite structure to enhance electrochemical performances. These OER catalysts are synthesized by the combustion method using nitrate precursors [8-10].

Synthesized OER catalysts are characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), field-emission scanning electron microscope (FE-SEM) and high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HR-TEM). To compare effect of different doping materials, electrochemical measurements such as cyclic voltammetry (CV), OER and long-term durability test are measured by rotating disk electrode (RDE) system. For the electrochemical analysis of the OER catalysts, Pt wire and Ag/AgCl electrodes are used as a counter electrode and a reference electrode in alkaline media (0.1 M KOH). The OER activity is measured by the linear sweep voltammetry (LSV) from 1.2 to 1.7 V at a scan rate of 5 mV s^-1 with rotating rate of 1600 rpm.

 

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* Corresponding authors: jyoung@sejong.ac.kr (J.-Y. Park).