Constructing Bifunctional Electrodes of FeCeO with Tunable Carbon Decoration from Waste Plastics for Efficient Energy Storage and Oxygen Evolution Reaction

Abstract

The rapid development of economy and society makes the energy and environment issues increasingly prominent. How to efficiently utilize "green electricity" and recycle waste plastics is crucial to the sustainable development strategy. Herein, a new strategy was proposed for recycling waste plastics to construct the bifunctional electrode material, i.e., waste plastics were used to fabricate the carbon decoration on FeCeO nanoparticles to simultaneously boost the electrochemical energy storage and electrocatalytic oxygen evolution reaction (OER) performance. At first, FeCeO nanoparticles were prepared by the co-precipitation method; then, waste plastics were employed to regulate the carbon decoration on FeCeO nanoparticles via the chemical vapor deposition (CVD) method. The detailed characterizations revealed that FeCeO with carbon decoration involved abundant crystal phases of metallic Ce, CeC 2 , CeO 2 , metallic Fe, FeC, and Fe 3 C, providing diverse active sites for the electrochemical energy storage and electrocatalytic OER; moreover, the carbon decoration exhibited great crystallinity and graphitization degree, as well as the unique slender, filamentous, hollow structure, creating a conductive network and promoting the electron transfer. Consequently, FeCeO with carbon decoration achieved the excellent electrochemical and electrocatalytic performance: (1) A specific capacity of 1131 F/g at 1/A g, and 640 F/g at a 2 high current density of 50 A/g in 6M KOH electrolyte; (2) An overpotential of 297 mV at 100 mA/cm 2 that was 55 mV lower than commercial RuO 2 (352 mV), and an excellent long-term (100 h) stability at a high current density of 200 mA/cm 2 in 1M KOH electrolyte.