Facile synthesis of electrospun transition metallic nanofibrous mats with outstanding activity for ethylene glycol electro-oxidation in alkaline solution

ABS T R A C T Electrospinning technique was exploited to prepare a series of nickel-manganese alloy on carbon nanofibers [NiMn@CNFs] in various Ni:Mn wt.% ratios by using the corresponding acetate salts at 20 kV, followed by a calcination process for the obtained metallic fibrous mats at 850 C for 5 h. The crystalline structure, morphology and chemical constituents of formed nanocomposites were determined by using X-ray diffraction (XRD), scan-ning electron microscopy (SEM), Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and energy dispersive X-ray (EDX) analyses. The electrocatalytic activity of different NiMn@CNFs nanomaterials for oxidizing ethylene glycol molecules was evaluated in NaOH solution through cyclic voltammetry and steady state polarization measure-ments. The presence of increased content of manganese in NiMn@CNFs nanocomposite significantly affected its electrochemical performance. Adding 40 wt.% Mn in the synthesized nanomaterial was sufficient to achieve the optimum oxidation current density with the best stability when compared to that of Ni@CNFs. The present work opens a new route for fabricating many binary and ternary transition metals-based fibrous mats by using the electrospinning technique and examining their electrochemical activity for renewable energy applications.