Journal de la nanomédecine et de la découverte biothérapeutique
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Metal/metal oxide nanoclusters based hybrid material for water splitting-A sustainable source of energy

Akhtar Munir

The demand and consumption of energy is expected to be doubled in the coming 50 years and meanwhile the energy cost is also expected to rise significantly. Fossil fuels, currently the leading source of energy, subsidize a lot of CO₂ to the environment causing many environmental issues including greenhouse effect. To address these challenges, ‘H₂’ based economy is one of the vital scientific and political debate being a cleanest of all the fossils fuel with highest mass energy density (120-140 MJ/Kg). Water, being a renewable source, is a promising candidate in this regard because of its ability for the production of H₂ (HER) and O₂ (OER). OER is the 4e�? multistep process with a demand of 240-600 mV extra energy, which makes it more sluggish kinetically. Until now, RuO₂ and IrO₂ are among the best electrocatalysts for OER with minimum overpotential. It is generally believed that molecular nanoclusters (MNCs) are the strongest candidate in this regard because of their unique optical, catalytic, magnetic and electronic properties. These unique properties due to various factors including electronic shell closing (Jellium model), geometric shell closing, high surface to volume ratio and super atomic behavior unlike their bulk counterparts and are thus worth exploring not only to enhance their electrocatalytic activity due to their synergistic effect but also their expected recycling potential. In this talk, I will present our recent results on the development of earth abundant and cost-effective transition metal/metal oxide nanoclusters based electrocatalysts and their hybrid, which have a great potential to make water a sustainable source of energy