Hydrothermal fabrication of a CuCo2O4-decorated MXene hybrid electrode for overall water splitting and energy storage.
Ahmad Sohail S, Lei Cong C, Sami Abdus A, Tahir Hasnat H et al.
On nickel foam, a binder-free CuCo2O4/MXene electrode was created and thoroughly examined for use in supercapacitors, the oxygen evolution reaction (OER), and the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) in alkaline media. When compared with pure CuCo2O4, the addition of MXene greatly enhances electrical conductivity, encourages effective charge transfer, and increases the accessibility of electrochemically active sites. Consequently, the CuCo2O4/MXene electrode shows a high specific capacitance (C sp) of 1851.61 F g-1 at 3.5 A g-1, along with a power density of 1085 W kg-1 and an energy density of 98.85 W h kg-1. At low overpotentials of 190 mV for the OER and 250 mV for the HER, the electrode reaches a current density of 10 mA cm-2, with matching Tafel slopes of 59 and 70 mV dec-1, respectively, showing good reaction kinetics and electrocatalytic performance. Furthermore, the electrode exhibits good endurance, sustaining consistent operation for more than 20 hours and keeping 95.68% of its initial capacitance after 1000 cycles. The high synergistic coupling and close interfacial contact between CuCo2O4 and MXene, which promote quick electron transit and effective redox activity, are responsible for the improved electrochemical performance. These findings demonstrate the potential of CuCo2O4/MXene as a sophisticated, binder-free, and three-dimensional electrode architecture for multipurpose energy conversion and storage applications.