The UK government has set a net zero greenhouse gases target to be achieved by 20501. One of the solutions that can contribute to this net zero target is using water electrolysers (WE) to generate hydrogen, which can then be used as fuel for the national grid. WE can be an efficient technique to produce high-purity
hydrogen without environmental pollution. Commercial forms of WE include alkaline water electrolysers (AWE) and proton exchange membrane water electrolysers (PEMWE). A newer designed version of WE are Anion Exchange Membrane Water Electrolysers (AEMWE) that combines the advantages of AWE and PEMWE. AEMWE currently rely heavily on precious metal catalysts for high efficiency for the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) that takes place due to their superior catalytic activity, stability, conductivity, and performance in alkaline conditions. These catalysts are expensive due to their low abundance. This project aims to find a nonprecious transition metal oxide catalyst due to low cost of the materials as well as wide availability of these materials. One such promising candidate is Copper Cobalt Oxide (CCO) Spinel. This is due to their high performance vs other TMOs, easy synthesis and low cost. While CCO Spinel has already been tested, there are ways to further enhance the performance of these TMOs through synthesis. Different nanostructures of TMOs will give different performance/stability. For this project, a hydrothermal synthesis method from a study by Abu Talha Aqueel Ahmed et al[2] has been adapted for the synthesis of CCO spinels. Techniques such as SEM/EDX and XRD was used to characterise the material to validate the correct chemistry. This study altered the precursor ratios, reaction temperatures, and synthesis durations to optimise the composition and morphology of the CCO catalyst. Physical characterisation revealed the successful synthesis of CCO nanoparticles with varying Cu ratios, displaying distinctive morphologies such as flower-like structures and needle-like shapes. Elevating the hydrothermal synthesis temperature to 180°C significantly improved the catalysts' purity and homogeneity. Electrochemical testing was performed to evaluate the catalyst's activity using CV. The results indicated that incorporating Cu led to a synergistic effect, enhancing OER electrocatalytic activity, as seen by a decrease in onset potential and increase in current density.

References
1) UK Hydrogen Strategy, S.o.S.f.B.E.a.I. Strategy, Editor. 2021.
2 )Aqueel Ahmed, Abu Talha, Sambhaji M. Pawar, Akbar I. Inamdar, Hyungsang Kim, and Hyunsik Im. "A morphologically engineered robust bifunctional CuCo2O4 nanosheet catalyst for highly efficient overall water splitting." Advanced Materials Interfaces 7, no. 2 (2020): 1901515