Electrochemical deposition of self-supported bifunctional copper oxide electrocatalyst for methanol oxidation and oxygen evolution reaction

Abstract Electrochemical oxidation of methanol and water splitting are deemed as effective pathways for producing ideal clean energy with low emission of pollutant. In this report, copper oxide microstructures are directly grown on conductive Ni foam substrate by a facile electrodeposition method followed by a post-annealing treatment. The CuO/Ni@400 electrocatalyst displays an onset potential of 0.38 V vs Ag/AgCl for methanol electro-oxidation and an overpotential of 364 mV at the current density of 10 mA cm −2 for oxygen evolution reaction which is better than the previously reported Cu-based catalysts in alkaline medium.