Electrochemical Performance of Synthesized CoCuFeMnNi High Entropy Alloy Nanoparticles in OER Applications

High entropy alloy nanoparticles (HEA NPs) have recently found tremendous popularity as effective catalysts in water splitting applications, such as oxygen evolution reactions (OERs). HEA NPs that contain expensive and less sustainable noble metals, such as platinum and iridium, as constituent elements are extensively investigated. With consideration of environmental friendliness, we propose a novel and facile approach for the fabrication of CoCuFeMnNi HEA NPs upon conventional carbon cloth (CC) substrates using laser irradiation. Noble metal-free CoCuFeMnNi HEA NPs were synthesized on CC substrates. Characterization using scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and X-ray diffraction (XRD) confirmed the successful synthesis of the HEA NPs on CC. Preliminary electrochemical results show that CoCuFeMnNi HEA NPs on CC display promising catalytic performance of lower overpotentials during OER tests. These results are competitive with traditionally used RuO2, IrO2, and other novel nanocatalysts in research today. This work can provide evidence that CoCuFeMnNi HEA NPs synthesized by laser irradiation can still perform comparably to conventional noble metal catalysts. It also provides insights into using more sustainable and cheaper nanomaterials as electrocatalysts.