Carbonized Wood Cellulose-Supported NiCoMo Heterostructures for Stable and Efficient Urea Electrolysis

Abstract Valorizing sustainable biomass resources into high-value functional electrocatalytic materials provides a promising approach to address energy and environmental issues, especially for urea electrolysis. However, urea electrolysis is predominantly bottlenecked by sluggish reaction kinetics and poor long-term stability, which severely limit its overall efficiency. To address these challenges, a self-supported NiCoMo-based multiphase heterostructure catalyst (NiCo@Ni-CoMoO4/CWC) was in situ constructed on carbonized wood cellulose (CWC). The built-in electric field and interfacial lattice strain induced by heterointerfaces between NiCo, NiMoO4, and CoMoO4 enhance intrinsic activity by regulating the electronic structure and optimizing the adsorption-desorption energies of reaction intermediates. Simultaneously, CWC substrate’s three-dimensional porous structure, superior hydrophilicity, and conductivity provide abundant accessible active sites, facilitate rapid mass/electron transport, and improve structural stability, further boosting catalytic performance. Benefiting from these synergistic advantages, NiCo@Ni-CoMoO4/CWC exhibits remarkable electrocatalytic performance (E = 1.28 V@100 mA cm–2 and E = −0.046 V@–10 mA cm–2). When assembled for urea electrolysis, it achieves an ultra-low cell voltage of 1.44 V at 500 mA cm–2 with 200 h of exceptional stability. This work not only develops an efficient and sustainable wood cellulose-based electrocatalyst but also provides a feasible strategy for the design of advanced heterostructure catalysts.