Pei Kang Shen*, Zhi Qun Tian
Collaborative Innovation Center of Sustainable Energy Materials, Guangxi University
100 Daxue Road, Nanning 530004, Guangxi, China
*E-mail address: pkshen@gxu.edu.cn
Water electrolysis is a promising approach for large-scale and sustainable hydrogen production. However, its kinetics is slow and requires precious metal catalysts to efficiently operate. Therefore, great efforts are being undertaken to design and prepare low-cost and highly efficient catalysts to boost the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) and oxygen evolution reaction (OER). Currently, we developed different noble metal free materials as efficient catalysts for HER, OER, and full water splitting.
For HER, the catalysts with novel nanostructures were prepared, such as carbon-encapsulated WOx (WOx@C), N-doped porous MoN nanobelts, nitrogen and fluorine dual-doped porous graphene-nanosheets, K0.4TaO2.4F0.6 nanocubes, Ni3S2 nanowires, TiN nanowires, nanoflower-like MoO2, et al. For OER catalysts, the Mo- and Fe-modified Ni(OH)2/NiOOH nanosheets, nitrogen-decorated iron-nickel sulfide nanosheets, Mo-doped NiOOH nanosheets, tantalum dioxyfluoride, pristine carbon nanotubes, graphene supported MnO2 nanowires were studied. For full water splitting, the porous WO2 hexahedral networks, heteroatoms dual doped porous graphene nanosheets, three-dimensional porous MoNi4 networks, porous MoO2 nanosheets, dye functionalized carbon nanotubes were studied. The synthesized materials displayed excellent catalytic activity for hydrogen evolution, oxygen evolution, and full water splitting, and can be applied as low cost and highly active multifunctional catalysts with excellent ORR and OER performance.
The improved activity and active origin of aforementioned catalysts are clarified through experimental analysis and DFT calculation. These studies pave the way for the design and development of cheaper, highly efficiently and more durable catalysts for wider applications.
References
1. S.Y. Jing, J.J Lu, G.T Yu, S.B Yin, L. Luo, Z.S Zhang, Y.F Ma, W. Chen, P.K. Shen, Carbon-encapsulated WOX as efficient catalysts for Hydrogen Evolution, Adv. Mater., 2018, 1705979 (7 pages).
2. Y.S. Jin, H.T. Wang, J.J. Li, X. Yue, Y.J. Han, P.K. Shen, Y. Cui, Porous MoO2 nanosheets as non-noble bifunctional electrocatalysts for overall water splitting, Adv. Mater., 2016, 28, 3785-3790.
3. Y.S. Jin, S.L. Huang, X. Yue, H.Y. Du, P.K. Shen, Mo- and Fe-Modified Ni(OH)2/NiOOH nanosheets as highly active and stable electrocatalysts for oxygen evolution reaction, ACS Catal., 2018, 8, 2359-2363.
4. S.Y. Jing, L.S. Zhang, L. Luo, J.J. Lu, S.B. Yin, P.K. Shen, P. Tsiakaras, N-doped porous molybdenum carbide nanobelts as eļ¬cient catalysts for hydrogen evolution reaction, Appl. Catal. B, 2018, 224, 533-540.
5. C. Shu, S. Kang, Y.S. Jin, X. Yue, P.K. Shen, Bifunctional non-precious metal electrocatalysts of porous WO2 hexahedral networks for full water splitting, J. Mater. Chem. A, 2017, 5, 9655-9660.
6. X. Yue, S.L. Huang J.J. Cai, Y.S. Jin, P.K. Shen, Heteroatoms dual doped porous graphene nanosheets as efficient bifunctional metal-free electrocatalysts for overall water-splitting, J. Mater. Chem. A, 2017, 5, 7784-7790.