Effective hydrogen production with OER using g-CN-supported vanadium oxide as electrocatalyst

Abstract

Renewable energy production is crucial in today's world due to environmental concerns like global warming and the depletion of hydrocarbon resources. In this perspective, water splitting is regarded as an advanced and ecologically friendly technique for hydrogen generation. Nevertheless, due to its slow oxygen evolution reaction (OER), the development of an electrocatalyst with exceptional efficiency is necessary for increasing the effectiveness of water splitting. The current analysis uses a simple hydrothermal technique to produce a non-noble metal-based g-CN/V₂O₅ electrocatalyst to promote the reaction efficacy. The prepared g-CN/V₂O₅ electrocatalyst was assessed using multiple electrochemical and physical approaches, which demonstrated a minimal overpotential of 189 mV, minimal onset potential (1.41 V) and a reduced Tafel gradient (33 mV dec⁻¹) to validate the improved kinetics of the reaction. The impedance results support this concept by displaying the minimal R_ct (0.56 Ω). Moreover, the produced composite material remained stable up to 40 h, as tested using a chronoamperometric approach. The integration of g-CN with pure metal oxide increases the availability of active zones for catalytic reaction and boosts the material's conductivity. Subsequently, these findings support the concept that the composite produced in this study seems to be an appropriate electrocatalyst for the OER and can also be employed in future energy generation and storage applications.