Title : Electrochemical synthesis of cobalt-selenium coatings as a catalysts for hydrogen evolution

Abstract:

The electrochemical deposition of transition metal chalcogenides thin films has received recently much attention due to their potential applications in electrocatalysis. Among them the special attention is focused on cobaltselenium system. Usually, thin films of these materials are prepared by hydrothermal synthesis or high temperature and vacuum techniques. However electrodeposition has been found to be a very good and low-cost method to fabricate thin polycrystalline films of these compounds. The electrodeposition of thin films of polycrystalline Co-Se system from aqueous baths was studied. The experiments were carried out following the thermodynamic analysis. A conventional three-electrode cell: Cu as working electrode, Ptsheet as counter electrode and Saturated Calomel Electrode (SCE) as reference electrode was used. The electrodeposition mechanism of pure elements Se, Co and Co-Se phases on copper substrate was studied by chronoamperometry, cyclic voltammetry and hydrodynamic techniques. Additionally, chronoamperometry and cyclic voltammetry were combined with electrochemical quartz crystal microbalance to analyse this process in details. This work was supported by the Polish National Center of Science under grant 2016/21/B/ST8/00431.

Biography:

Remigiusz Kowalik graduated at the University of Science and Technology in Krakowin 2000 (M.Sc.) and 2006 (Ph.D.) under the guidance of Professor Krzysztof Fitzner. He studied electrochemical atomic layer deposition methods with Professor Maria Luisa Foresti (Florence, Italy), electrodeposition of gold nanoclusters with Professor Derek Pletcher (Southampton, UK), electrochemistry of palladium and sonoelectrochemistry with Professor Peter Birkin (Southampton, UK), and electrochemical scanning tunneling microscopy with Dieter Kolb (Ulm, Germany). Now, he is a member of the Laboratory of Physical Chemistry and Electrochemistry, Faculty of Non-Ferrous Metals, AGH University of Science and Technology. His research interests are related mainly to electrochemistry and electrodeposition of metals and semiconductors and electrochemical atomic layer epitaxy.