Metal Alkoxides Derived High Entropy Oxides: A Design Strategy For Efficient Oxygen Evolution Reaction (OER) Electrocatalysts
AYTUNA Z. 1, BHARDWAJ A. 1, WILHELM M. 1, MATHUR S. 1
1 University of Cologne, Institute of Inorganic Chemistry, Cologne, Germany
High entropy materials (HEO) have gained enormous attention in recent years due to various application possibilities, based on the different attributes of each implemented metal cation and the synergy in between. The tailorable characteristic of the materials makes them a great opportunity, to choose and tune the metals and thus the properties. Therefore, different precursors and the synthesis approaches are finetuned to obtain a high entropy system, by using metal alkoxides, especially metal isopropoxides of titanium, vanadium, tin, zirconium, and hafnium. Furthermore, the synthesized HEO was analyzed with different characterization methods like X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), X-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS), X-ray diffraction (XRD), and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The material was tested for oxygen evolution reaction since high entropy materials have also gained high interest in terms of catalytical activity in the field of renewable energy. Based on that, the electrochemical water splitting reaction was catalyzed by the synthesized HEO [(V,Sn,Ti,Zr,Hf)O2] and superior catalytical activity with an overpotential of 301 mV and an electrochemically active surface area of 3375 Fcm-2 could be obtained. Furthermore, the material is tested on stability by a chronoamperometry measurement, showing great stability over 90 hours.