Year

2019

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Department

School of Mechanical, Materials, Mechatronic and Biomedical Engineering

Abstract

Environment pollution and energy crisis remains to be the primary challenges for modern society. Developing sustainable and renewable energy sources along with efficient energy storage and conversion technologies is considered to be the key to address the issues. Electrochemical water splitting coupling with grid-scale renewable energy harvesting technologies is now becoming one of the most promising approaches. Hydrogen, with the highest mass-energy density of any fuel, is regarded as the ultimate clean energy carrier. The realization of practical water splitting depends heavily on the development of low-cost, highly active, and durable electrocatalysts for hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) and oxygen evolution reaction (OER). Recently, heterostructured catalysts that are generally composed of electrochemical active materials and various functional additives have demonstrated extraordinary electrocatalytic performance toward HER and OER, and particularly, a number of precious metal-free heterostructures delivered comparable activity with precious metal-based catalysts.

In this doctoral work, the recent research progress on heterostructured electrocatalysts towards electrochemical water splitting is first reviewed. The design and synthesis of heterostructures, electrochemical performance, and the related mechanisms for performance enhancement are discussed. After that, based on the summarized principles for designing advanced heterostructured electrocatalysts, three types of electrocatalysts are designed and synthesized, and then the insight into the promoted electrochemical performance is studied...

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Unless otherwise indicated, the views expressed in this thesis are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of the University of Wollongong.