Study of carbon black supported amorphous Ni–B nano-catalyst for hydrazine electrooxidation in alkaline media

Abstract

Carbon black supported amorphous Ni–B alloy catalyst (Ni–B/C) was prepared by a simple chemical reduction method and applied as an anode catalyst for direct hydrazine fuel cells (DHFCs). The structure and morphology of the obtained Ni–B/C nano-particles (NPs) were characterized by transmission electron microscopy (TEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometry (ICP-OES) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). The results showed that Ni–B/C was in an amorphous state and the NPs were highly dispersed on the surface of carbon black. The electrocatalytic performance of amorphous Ni–B/C towards hydrazine electrooxidation was studied by cyclic voltammetry (CV), linear sweep voltammetry (LSV) and chronoamperometry (CA) methods using a rotating disk electrode (RDE) and compared with crystalline Ni/C NPs, where a two-fold increase in the catalytic current density towards hydrazine electrooxidation was observed.