Preparation And Properties Studies On The Ni-Co,Ni-Co-Mn Oxygen Electrode For Water Electrolysis

Hydrogen is considered an environmentally friendly energy sources. For it has lots ofprominent merits, such as transportability, storability, renewability, and so on. So it isconsidered the ideal energy carrier. And it has been given widespread concern. Electrolytichydrogen production from water is a cheaper method widely used and also hasachieved large-scale generation technology. However, due to the existence of a large hydrogenevolution and the oxygen evolution overpotential in the electrolysis，its cell voltage is veryhigh, So it is of great significance to prepare a high-performance activity of oxygen evolutionelectrode. This paper researched the preparation of the oxygen evolution electrode material ofhigh catalytic activity by electrodeposition, then used UV spectrophotometry analyzedthe coating composition of the content analysis, and studied the electrochemical properties ofoxygen evolution reaction in30wt%KOH solution, besides, characterized the electrodes bySEM, EDS and XRD.By using the nickel foam as the substrate material, Ni-Co alloy electrode wasprepared by electrodeposition. We Systematiclly researched the influence of thedensity of CoSO₄7H₂O, Ni₂SO₄6H₂O and Na3cit6H₂O, the electrodepositioncurrent density, and the electrodeposition time on the catalytic activity of the alloyelectrode, Then the alloy electrode was oxidized under a high temperature and lastfixed the optimal technics parameters of the preparation of the electrode. Which thecontent of nickel and cobalt ratio was measured as1:2.2907; The SEM pictures ofthe prepared Ni-Co oxides electrode showed that the electrode surface consists ofmany uniform dimond particles; The XRD diffraction indicated that at350°C, thesurface of the alloy can get the most spinel oxides NiCo₂O₄. Impedance spectrashowed that when the oxide surface area was oxidized at350°C for15h, oxidesurface area was the largest, and its catalytic activity was the highest. Polarizationcurves showed that the prepared Ni-Co oxide electrode in the oxygenevolution overpotential η100was126mV which was about235mV lower than Nielectrode. So the catalytic activeity of oxygen evolution has been greatly improved.The optimal technics conditions for preparing Ni-Co-Mn alloy electrode werefixed by orthogonal and single factor experimentation. From the SEM pictures, itcould be found that a large number of fine particles were distributed on the alloysurface which was prepared under the optimal process parameters. These particles could increase the electrode surface roughness and were beneficial to theoxygen-evolution reaction; EDS results proved that the composition of atoms of thealloy was Ni_72.83Co_9.63Mn_17.53, Polarization curves showd that the prepared Ni-Co-Mn electrode in the oxygen evolution overpotential η100was239mV which wasabout132mV lower than Ni electrode.So the Ni-Co-Mn alloy electrodes ownedhigher oxygen-evolution catalytic activity.Ultraviolet spectrophotometry was used to determine the metal contentof the coating, During the experiment,1-（2-Pyridineazo）-2-naphthol（PAN） was usedas a chromogenic agent of metal ions, triton X-100as a cosolvent, to explore theinflucence of pH value, the volume of Triton X-100and PAN Add on the system, sothe optimum dosage of the various factors and the best reaction time was determined.With higher accuracy and sensitivity, the method can be used for the componentanalysis.