Investigation on the morphological structural and electrochemical properties of fe based metal oxides for energy and environmental applications

Abstract

Among the various problems, energy crises, environmental pollution and lack of drinking water are the major problems that has to be sorted out globally. Scientific community has come up with various approaches to deal with the above mentioned global issues. Nanotechnology is a branch of science that combines material science, chemistry and physics. This multidisciplinary field is has come up with various inventions and their applications directly to the society. Metal oxides semiconductors are the group of nanomaterials that has been used in diverse practical application. Among the various metal oxide nanomaterials, Fe-based nanomaterials such as (Fe2O3, MFe2O4, Fe3O4 and Fe doped Co3O4) are outstanding material with distinctive and easy tunable properties used in diverse technological applications such as electrodes for energy storage devices, catalysts for dye degradation and electrodes for capacitive deionization. In the case of supercapacitors, the researchers have focused to enhance the energy density of by employing various approaches. One of the effective and easy approach was to develop a nanostructured electrode for energy storage devices and capacitive desalination. As for as the catalysts for photo degradation of organic dyes were concerned, development of nanocomposite with low electro-hole recombination and high retrieve properties are needed. Low-cost high performance all solid state Coaxial Asymmetric Supercapacitors (CASC) device was fabricated with binder free -Fe2O3 microparticles grown on Pencil Graphite Electrode (PGE) as negative electrode and CoFe2O4 nanoparticles on Al foil as positive electrode was designed and assembled. PGE has been reported as a carbon-based substrate with high electrical conductivity for the growth of -Fe2O3 microparticles by hydrothermal method. The binder free PGE coated -Fe2O3 microparticles possesses large surface to volume ratio, which provides enough space and shortens the electrolyte diffusion length to the electrode material for energy storage. Positive electrode material, CoFe2O4 particles are synthesized by auto combustion method. newline