Sputtered Cu-doped NiO thin films as an efficient electrocatalyst for methanol oxidation.

The efficient electrocatalysts for direct methanol oxidation play an essential role in the electrochemical energy conversion systems for their application in a wide range of portable applications. Consequently, Cu-doped NiO thin films on fluorine-doped tin oxide (FTO) were successfully prepared by the co-sputtering deposition technique, using various deposition times (300, 600, 900, and 1200 seconds), and producing films of different thicknesses (30, 55, 90, and 120 nm, respectively). X-ray diffraction (XRD) revealed the ideal crystallinity of the structure of the prepared films and was used to observe the effect of the thickness of the films on the crystal size.