Hydrothermal synthesized delafossite CuGaO_(2) as an electrocatalyst for water oxidation

Hydrogen production from water splitting provides an effective method to alleviate the ever-growing global energy crisis.In this work,delafossite CuGaO_(2)(CGO)crystal was synthesized through hydrothermal routes with Cu(NO_(3))_(2)·3H_(2)O and Ga(NO_(3))_(3)·xH_(2)O used as reactants.The addition of cetyltrimethylammonium bromide(CTAB)was found to play an important role in modifying the morphology of CuGaO_(2)(CGO-CTAB).With the addition of CTAB,the morphology of CGO-CTAB samples changed from irregular flake to typical hexagonal sheet microstructure,with an average size of 1-2μm and a thick-ness of around 100 nm.Furthermore,the electrocatalytic activity of CGO-CTAB crystals for oxygen evolution reaction(OER)was also studied and compared with that of CGO crystals.CGO-CTAB samples exhibited better activity than CGO.An overpotential of 391.5 mV was shown to be able to generate a current density of 10 mA/cm^(2).The as-prepared samples also demonstrate good stability for water oxidation and relatively fast OER kinetics with a Tafel slope of 56.4 mV/dec.This work highlights the significant role of modification of CTAB surfactants in preparing CGO related crystals,and the introduc-tion of CTAB was found to help to improve their electrocatalytic activity for OER.