Wang, Yifu and Bimbo, Nuno and Dawson, Richard (2021) Optimising the generation of hydrogen as a carbon-free fuel for the future, by development of new and unique catalytic coatings. Masters thesis, Lancaster University.
![[thumbnail of 2021YifuMRes]](https://eprints.lancs.ac.uk/style/images/fileicons/text.png)
Abstract
The demand of producing hydrogen energy in a more efficient and cleaner process has been a top priority for scientists as hydrogen energy is expected to be a splendid alternative of fossil fuel in many applications such as trains and airplanes. This thesis aimed to improve the efficiency of alkaline water electrolysis system by developing a low-cost catalytic coating on its anode that is made of stainless steel, where oxygen evolution reaction occurs. Nickel-iron based materials are main focus in this study due to their low price, high earth abundance and high activity towards OER. The thesis contained the cyclic voltammetry and linear sweep voltammetry results of metallic NiFe and NiFe (oxy)hydroxide prepared by electrodeposition and thermal deposition methods. Chronoamperometry was used to study the durability of the materials. The thesis also contains SEM images EDS mappings of coatings for morphological and elemental analysis. The most significant finding of the study is that NiFe hydroxide thin film prepared by electrodeposition improved OER drastically by showing 0.518 V overpotential at 10 mA cm-2. In a bench-scale single cell electrolyser test, the anode with NiFe hydroxide thin film generated 5.7 times as much columbic charge as electrode without coating when 1.6 V was applied for 30 minutes at room temperature and the electrolyte concentration was 0.1 M. These results indicate that the methodology can be applied to commercial scale of alkaline water electrolyser with stainless steel substrates for further testing.