Iron nickel based bimetallic catalysts have recently emerged as one of the best candidates for oxygen evolution reaction (OER) in alkaline conditions [1]. It is crucial to understand the composition and morphology of iron nickel nanoparticles to optimize the catalysts for enhanced performance [2]. One key aspect to understand in the study of OER performance, in addition to the function of composition and morphology, is the physical surface area and the electrochemically active surface area (ECSA) of the catalysts. In this study, three different iron nickel nanoparticles will be synthesized. The three nanoparticles will be varied based on morphology (alloy vs core-shell) and composition (high vs low amount of stabilizer). Brauner-Emmett-Tellet (BET) surface area analysis will be conducted on the as synthesized iron nickel nanoparticles using Autosorb-iQ^TM to calculate the physical surface area while electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) will be employed to quantify the ECSA [3]. In addition, electrochemical performance will be measured using techniques such as cyclic voltammetry (CV), chronopotentiometry (CP), and chronoamperometry (CA).

[1] M. W. Louie and A. T. Bell, J. Am. Chem. Soc., 135, 12329 (2013)

[2] S. L. Candelaria, N. M. Bedford, T. J. Woehl, N. S. Rentz, A. R. Showalter, S.

Pylypenko, B. A. Bunker, S. Lee, B. Reinhard, Y. Ren, S. P. Ertem, E. B. Coughlin, N. A.

Sather, J. L. Horan, A. M. Herring and L. F. Greenlee, ACS Catal., 7, 365 (2017).

[3] C.C. McCrory, S. Jung, J. C. Peters, and T. F. Jaramillo, J. Am. Chem. Soc., 135, 16977

(2013)