Some new observations on the structural and phase evolution of nickel titanate nanofibers

Polymorph nickel titanate nanofibers as bifunctional electrocatalysts towards hydrogen and oxygen evolution reactions

“…Potassium hydroxide (KOH) pellets were purchased from Nice Chemicals, India. 20 wt.% Pt loading on Vulcan XC 72 of Pt particle size < 5 nm) and commercial Ruthenium (IV) oxide (RuO2, assay 99.9%) powders were procured from Sigma-Aldrich, India. No additional purification was done for these chemicals (assay > 99%).…”

“…The synthesis of NTO nanofibers are explained in detail elsewhere. 20 In brief, the precursor nanofibers are developed from sol-gel assisted electrospinning for optimal process parameters. Later, these electrospun precursor nanofibers were pyrolyzed on a quartz plate in Muffle furnace at three different pyrolysis temperatures, T (viz.…”

“…charge-transfer (CT) bands. 20 The absence of these sub-band peaks for 773 K NTO sample suggests the high structural disorder in the material, which could either be nonstoichiometry defects or dislocations in the material with small crystallite/grain size. The broad absorption edge at higher wavenumber is ascribed to 2 4 O Ti…”

“…CT band. 17,20 The Raman spectra of NTO nanofibers obtained at different pyrolysis temperature are shown in Figure 3b. For INTO structure with 2…”

“…The synthesis and exclusive formation of polymorph NTO nanofibers from sol-gel assisted electrospinning followed by pyrolysis has been reported in our previous study. 20 The band gap of the material, especially in heterostructures, determine the kinetic of photo/electrochemical reactions for which such systems are used. 18,19,[21][22][23] Hence, it is very important to understand the excitation dynamics in the band structure, that produces electron-hole pair.…”