Dissertation
DEVELOPING EFFICIENT METALLIC AEROGEL BASED CATALYSTS FOR ELECTROCHEMICAL WATER-SPLITTING
Washington State University
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Washington State University
01/2022
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.7273/000004624
Handle:
https://hdl.handle.net/2376/125273
Abstract
As a promising green energy carrier, hydrogen caters to the imperative demands for energy storage and consumption with zero carbon emission. Among the various hydrogen production methods, electrolysis of water to hydrogen is one of the best techniques with production efficiency ranging from 70% to 100%. Hydrogen production by electrolysis of water can significantly increase hydrogen production and reduce pollution generation. But the sluggish kinetics of oxygen evolution reaction (OER) and hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) leads to extra electricity consumption. The heavy reliance on scarce noble metals inhibits the broad application of the electrolysis hydrogen production technology in the market. To address that, increasing research is devoted to improving the performance of OER and HER catalysts and exploring alternatives for their commercial counterparts. Metallic aerogels have been investigated as the electrocatalysts for OER and HER due to their advantageous features. Most currently developed Metallic aerogels consist of noble metals, which inevitably increase the cost of the electrolyzer. Thus, to realize efficient water splitting at a low price, we designed a group of aerogels based on transitional metals and noble metals functioning as catalysts towards OER and HER. First, the synthesized IrxPb bimetallic aerogel enhances the catalytic efficiency and durability of OER compared to commercial IrO2. Second, Ir single atoms are dispersed on the Ni aerogel substrate with optimized Ir content for atom utilization. The presence of single atoms and enhanced OER performance were confirmed by microscopy characterization, X-ray absorption spectroscopy, and electrochemical testing. In addition to the catalyst for OER, we also developed a NixSny aerogel to replace noble metal catalysts in alkaline HER, with durability comparable to commercial catalysts in our long-term tests.
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Details
- Title
- DEVELOPING EFFICIENT METALLIC AEROGEL BASED CATALYSTS FOR ELECTROCHEMICAL WATER-SPLITTING
- Creators
- Hangyu Tian
- Contributors
- Yuehe Lin (Advisor)Annie Du (Committee Member)Min-Kyu Song (Committee Member)Scott Beckman (Committee Member)
- Awarding Institution
- Washington State University
- Academic Unit
- Voiland College of Engineering and Architecture
- Theses and Dissertations
- Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Washington State University
- Publisher
- Washington State University
- Number of pages
- 127
- Identifiers
- 99900901836701842
- Language
- English
- Resource Type
- Dissertation