Development of advanced nanomaterials for hydrogen production through water splitting

Nowadays, the development of novel hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) and oxygen evolution reaction (OER) electrocatalysts with high performances and low costs for a large-scale application in water splitting is challenging. To settle such issue, herein, a facile route based on germanium oxides/hydroxides nanostructures is developed to fabricate CoGeO2(OH)2 nanosheets for HER and OER. The obtained electrocatalysts are characterized by UV-Vis, XRD, SEM, and EDS techniques, and their catalytic activity is then evaluated by electrochemical technique. The electrocatalytic activity is determined through the evaluation of many parameters determined experimentally, among which overpotential, current delivery, Tafel slope and charge transfer resistance. The electrocatalytic performance of the samples suggests a synergistic effect of the sheet-like morphology and of the coupling of germanium oxides/hydroxides with transition metals. This thesis offers a facile synthesis strategy for functional transition metal germanium oxides/hydroxides catalysts able to perform in HER and OER.