One-step hydrothermal synthesis of ZnO nanorods as efficient oxygen evolution reaction catalyst

Abstract

To deal with rapid depletion of fossil fuels and increasing demand of energy, development of highly efficient non-noble metal based catalyst has attracted much attention. Therefore, in this study reported a facile one-step hydrothermal synthesis of ZnO nanorods. The structural and morphological properties of the synthesized sample have been studied through X-ray Diffraction analysis, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, Raman spectroscopy, Scanning electron microscope, SEM-based Energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy and Ultraviolet-visible spectroscopy. Electrochemical studies toward oxygen evolution reaction are evaluated via cyclic voltammetric measurements (CV) and linear sweep voltammetric (LSV) measurements. It has been found that ZnO-nanorods/nickel foam (NF) delivers benchmark 10 mA cm⁻² at just 340 mV overpotential, which is superior than previously reported oxygen evolution reaction (OER) catalysts. The overall findings of the current study provide a cost-effective and efficient synthesis of ZnO-nanorods for application as an electrocatalyst.

GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT

KEYWORDS:

• Facile synthesis
• hydrothermal
• oxygen evolution reaction
• overpotential
• ZnO nanorods

Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge the Institute of Chemical Sciences, Bahauddin Zakaryia University, Pakistan for facilitating laboratory facilities to carry out this project.

Conflict of interest

Authors declare no conflict of interest.