Synthesis and characterization of CoX2O4 nanostructured oxides

Abstract

In this manuscript, four cobalt-based oxides (in the form of CoX2O4, where X was either Fe,Cu, Ni or Zn) were synthesized via sol-gel methodology. The four oxides were characterized by XRD, showing the quality of these materials, the crystal structure of each one of them and the anticipated scale size of their particles. TGA was applied to investigate their thermal stability, and CoFe2O4 showed the best stability. SEM was utilized to see the morphology of these oxides, where the images of each material was in good agreement with the XRD data. SEM images confirmed that the synthesized oxides in this work were nanomaterials. Magnetism behavior of CoFe2O4 and CoNi2O4 was noticed due to the agglomeration of particles. Electrochemical analysis was done on these oxides. CV results showed how CoZn2O4 performed the best among the other composites, showing a high-quality demonstration of EDL capacitive behavior. Discharge data of CoZn2O4 was in great alignment with its CV data in proving the outstanding electron movement. The discharge behavior also showed how the electrical stability or capacitance of CoZn2O4 was excellent. LSV results represented the performance of each composite, and how CoNi2O4 gave the best behavior in this test, which suggested the possibility of an excellent performance in water splitting experiments.

Keywords

• Metal oxides
• Nanocomposite material
• Sol-gel preparation
• Electrochemistry