Unveiling the Role of Boron on Nickel‐Based Catalyst for Efficient Urea Oxidation Assisted Hydrogen Production
Abstract Urea oxidation reaction (UOR) is an ideal alternative to oxygen evolution reaction (OER) for efficient hydrogen production but is immensely plagued by slow kinetics. Herein, a multilayer hole amorphous boron‐nickel catalyst (a‐NiB x ) is fabricated through a simple chemical plating method, which displays intriguing catalytic activity toward UOR, demanding a low working potential of 1.4 V to reach 100 mA cm −2 . The high performance is credited to the formation of metaborate (BO 2 − ), which can promote the formation of high‐oxidation‐state NiOOH active phase and optimize the adsorption of urea molecules. This can be confirmed by the operando spectroscopy characteristics and density functional theory calculations. Consequently, the assembled electrolyzer utilizing NiB x as bifunctional catalysts exhibited splendid catalytic activity, requiring an evidently lower voltage of 1.66 V to reach a current density of 100 mA cm −2 and 1.57 V when using Pt/C as a cathode catalyst. Moreover, the assembled electrolyzer secured a robust stability of over 200 h, as well as a four times higher hydrogen production rate than traditional water electrolysis.
Authors
- Lifang Jiao (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4676-997X)
- Tongzhou Wang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9435-0006)
- Kaiqian Shu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4451-2529)
- Li Shao (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1544-7548)
- Yida Deng (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8890-552X)
- Jihong Li (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0009-2422-4635)
- Hui Chen (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7113-0206)
- Guodong Li (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8528-6367)
- Qiuju Li (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0008-3915-7044)
- Lei Shi (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8429-4840)
- Dong Yan (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6657-6596)
- Zhiqi Jiang
- Yitao Hu
Institutions
- Southwest University of Science and Technology (CN)
- Army Medical University (CN)
- Jilin University (CN)
- Nankai University (CN)
- Hainan University (CN)
- State Key Laboratory of Inorganic Synthesis and Preparative Chemistry
Publication Details
- Journal
- Advanced Functional Materials
- Published
- 2024-09-15
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1002/adfm.202411011
- Citations
- 42
- Primary Topic
- Electrocatalysts for Energy Conversion
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 4.30
Funders
- National Natural Science Foundation of China
- Natural Science Foundation of Hainan Province
- Hainan University
- Education Department of Hainan Province
- International Science and Technology Cooperation Program of Jiangsu Province