Novel carbon nanostructures are desired to develop alternative to noble metals like Iridium or Ruthenium based electrocatalysts as an anode material in alkaline water electrolyser. In this work first nickel-silica nanocomposite with a particles size of about 20 nm has been formed by alcogel electrolysis and then employed for catalytic growth of carbon nanostructures by CVD at 650–750 °C using alcohol precursor diluted by argon followed by electrocatalytic study towards oxygen evolution reaction (OER) in 1 M KOH solution. The carbon nanotubes of two different diameters, i.e. 10–30 nm and about 100–300 nm are seen at synthesis temperature of 650 °C. The larger tubes are replaced by irregular structures and carbon onions at 750 °C, with almost negligible nanotubes at the latter temperature. The diameter distribution of onion like carbon is found to be in the range 50–700 nm. Shift from thicker nanotubes to onions may be partly attributable to higher diffusion rates of carbon that result in complete coverage of larger nanoparticles without allowing an open end to continue the growth of a nanotubes. The small radius of curvature and extra-ordinary distortion required for carbon onions has not allowed them to grow on small nanoparticles. Moreover, our synthesized CNTs exhibited overpotentials of 354 mV at current density of 10 mA/cm² which was 24 mV lower than revealed for carbon onions under similar conditions.

需要新的碳纳米结构来开发诸如铱或钌基电催化剂之类的贵金属的替代品，以作为碱性水电解槽中的阳极材料。在这项工作中，首先通过醇凝胶电解形成了粒径约为20 nm的镍-二氧化硅纳米复合材料，然后将其用于碳纳米结构的催化生长，方法是在650–750°C的温度下使用氩气稀释的醇前驱体进行CVD，然后进行电催化研究。 1 M KOH溶液中的氧气释放反应（OER）。在650°C的合成温度下，可以看到两种不同直径的碳纳米管，即10–30 nm和大约100–300 nm。较大的管子在750°C处被不规则结构和碳洋葱所取代，在此温度下，纳米管几乎可以忽略不计。发现像碳一样的洋葱直径分布在50-700 nm之间。从较厚的纳米管向洋葱的迁移可能部分归因于碳的较高扩散速率，这导致较大纳米颗粒的完全覆盖，而没有允许开口端继续纳米管的生长。碳洋葱所需的小曲率半径和异常变形使它们无法在小纳米颗粒上生长。此外，我们合成的CNT在10 mA / cm的电流密度下表现出354 mV的过电势 碳洋葱所需的小曲率半径和非凡的畸变使它们无法在小的纳米颗粒上生长。此外，我们合成的CNT在10 mA / cm的电流密度下显示354 mV的过电势 碳洋葱所需的小曲率半径和异常变形使它们无法在小纳米颗粒上生长。此外，我们合成的CNT在10 mA / cm的电流密度下表现出354 mV的过电势²在相同条件下比碳洋葱低24 mV。