Fabrication of PANI supported magnesium/cobalt spinel ternary oxide as an efficient oxygen evolution reaction and removal of organic pollutant

The advancement of potent, highly efficient and reasonably priced catalysts is necessary for the production of hydrogen from a renewable source and removal of organic contaminants from waste water. In this study, we demonstrated the dynamic proportion capability of the hydrothermally condensed polymorphic electrocatalyst MgCo2O4/PANI nanocomposite. The composite material has higher surface area of 264 m2 g-1 and electrochemical active surface area of 299.5 cm2. The MgCo2O4/PANI nanocomposite exhibits 201 mV of lower overpotential to attain at 10 mA cm-2 of current density and 66 mV dec-1 of reduced Tafel value. The long-term viability for 50 h is demonstrated using MgCo2O4/PANI at 10 mA cm-2 for O2 production. The findings of this study demonstrated that MgCo2O4/PANI nanocomposite is an affordable, non-precious material, which can be utilized to generate H2 on a large scale. On the other hand, the resultant material was then applied for the Congo Red (CR) dye photodegradation irradiated with visible light with degradation efficiency of 98%. The comparison of nanostructured MgCo2O4/PANI demonstrates that the electrochemical performance for water oxidation processes as well as degradation process is significantly higher than the pure form. The exceptional catalytic performance of MgCo2O4/PANI nanocomposite is due to the large quantity of active sites, some immense oxygen vacancies, and a fast electron transfer rate, with a steady oxygen generating stability of 1500 cycles confirm the endurance of MgCo2O4/PANI nanoarrays, which is beneficial for future industrial application.