Surface Selenium Coating Promotes Selective Methanol-to-Formate Electrooxidation on Ni<sub>3</sub>Se<sub>4</sub> Nanoparticles
In the quest to replace fossil fuels and reduce carbon dioxide emissions, developing energy technologies based on clean catalytic processes is fundamental. However, the cost-effectiveness of these technologies strongly relies on the availability of efficient catalysts made of abundant elements. Herein, this study presents a one-step hydrothermal method to obtain a series of Ni<sub>3</sub>Se<sub>4</sub> nanoparticles with a layer of amorphous selenium on their surface. When employed as electrocatalysts for the methanol oxidation reaction (MOR), the optimized proper surface Se-coated Ni<sub>3</sub>Se<sub>4</sub> nanoparticles exhibit a high current density of 160 mA cm<sup>-2</sup> at 1.6 V, achieving a high methanol-to-formate Faradaic efficiency above 97.8% and excellent stability with less than 20% current decay after an 18 h chronoamperometry test. This excellent performance is rationalized using density functional theory calculations, which unveil that the electrochemical recombination of SeO<sub><i>x</i></sub> results in a reduction of the energy barrier for the dehydrogenation of methanol during the MOR process.
Authors
- Ning Jian
- Hui-Yan Pan
- Junshan Li (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1482-1972)
- Andreu Cabot (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7533-3251)
- Chaoqi Zhang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0357-235X)
- Yongcai Zhang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1551-754X)
- Yi Ma (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8143-1483)
- Huiyao Ge (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4928-1777)
- Yu Zhang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0332-0013)
- Yongliang Liu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0785-5621)
- Jing Yu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7620-745X)
- Jun Zhao
- Rong Liu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3589-1432)
- Jie Deng (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9615-9291)
- Luming Li (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0000-7000-5550)
Institutions
- Institució Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avançats (ES)
- Pennsylvania State University (US)
- Hebei University of Science and Technology (CN)
- Nanyang Institute of Technology (CN)
- Chengdu University (CN)
- Institut de Recerca en Energia de Catalunya (ES)
- Fuzhou University (CN)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Inorganic Chemistry
- Published
- 2024-11-20
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.inorgchem.4c03996
- Citations
- 9
- Primary Topic
- Electrocatalysts for Energy Conversion
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.92
Funders
- Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades
- China Postdoctoral Science Foundation
- Natural Science Foundation of Hebei Province
- Chengdu University
- Natural Science Foundation of Sichuan Province
- European Regional Development Fund