A synergetic effect between photogenerated carriers and photothermally enhanced electrochemical urea-assisted hydrogen generation on the Ni-NiO/Nickel Foam catalyst

Qi Wang; Xing Cheng; Yukun Sun; Zaicheng Sun; Dong Wang; Ge Chen; Peter Schaaf

doi:10.1039/D1MA00038A

A synergetic effect between photogenerated carriers and photothermally enhanced electrochemical urea-assisted hydrogen generation on the Ni-NiO/Nickel Foam catalyst†

Qi Wang,^a Xing Cheng,

^a Yukun Sun,^b Zaicheng Sun,

^b Dong Wang,

*^c Ge Chen

*^a and Peter Schaaf

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* Corresponding authors

^a Beijing Key Laboratory for Green Catalysis Separation, Department of environmental and Chemical Engineering, Faculty of Environmental and life science, Beijing University of Technology, No. 100, Ping Le Yuan, Chaoyang District, Beijing 100124, P. R. China
E-mail: chenge@bjut.edu.cn

^b Beijing Key Lab for Green Catalysis and Separation, Department of Chemistry and Biology, Beijing University of Technology, Beijing 100124, China

^c Chair Materials for Electrical Engineering and Electronics, Institute of Materials Science and Engineering, Institute of Micro and Nanotechnology MacroNano®, TU Ilmenau, Gustav-Kirchhoff-Str. 5, Ilmenau, Germany
E-mail: dong.wang@tu-ilmenau.de

Abstract

The urea-assisted water electrolysis reactions are of great significance for solving the increasingly serious energy crisis and environmental pollution. Recently, the photo-driven effect strategy has been demonstrated to be an efficient external driving force for improving electrocatalytic activities. Herein, we synthesized Ni-NiO heterostructured nanosheet arrays grown on Ni foam (denoted as Ni-NiO/NF) as a bifunctional electrocatalyst enhancing the urea oxidation reaction (UOR) and hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) activities simultaneously under light irradiation. Moreover, when the catalyst is used in a two-electrode system for the urea-assisted water electrolysis reaction, the cell potential could be reduced to 1.48 V to achieve the current density of 10 mA cm⁻² after exposure to light irradiation, as well as remarkable stability. Our studies demonstrate that the enhancement of the HER & UOR activities is attributed to a synergetic effect between photogenerated carriers and photothermy.

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1039/D1MA00038A
Article type: Paper
Submitted: 17 Jan 2021
Accepted: 15 Feb 2021
First published: 16 Feb 2021
This article is Open Access

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Mater. Adv., 2021,2, 2104-2111

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A synergetic effect between photogenerated carriers and photothermally enhanced electrochemical urea-assisted hydrogen generation on the Ni-NiO/Nickel Foam catalyst

Q. Wang, X. Cheng, Y. Sun, Z. Sun, D. Wang, G. Chen and P. Schaaf, Mater. Adv., 2021, 2, 2104 DOI: 10.1039/D1MA00038A

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A synergetic effect between photogenerated carriers and photothermally enhanced electrochemical urea-assisted hydrogen generation on the Ni-NiO/Nickel Foam catalyst†

Abstract

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A synergetic effect between photogenerated carriers and photothermally enhanced electrochemical urea-assisted hydrogen generation on the Ni-NiO/Nickel Foam catalyst

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