Boosting urea electrooxidation on oxyanion-engineered nickel sites via inhibited water oxidation

Abstract Renewable energy-based electrocatalytic oxidation of organic nucleophiles (e.g.methanol, urea, and amine) are more thermodynamically favourable and, economically attractive to replace conventional pure water electrooxidation in electrolyser to produce hydrogen. However, it is challenging due to the competitive oxygen evolution reaction under a high current density (e.g., >300 mA cm −2 ), which reduces the anode electrocatalyst’s activity and stability. Herein, taking lower energy cost urea electrooxidation reaction as the model reaction, we developed oxyanion-engineered Nickel catalysts to inhibit competing oxygen evolution reaction during urea oxidation reaction, achieving an ultrahigh 323.4 mA cm…

• AN
  Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation
• AS
  Australian Synchrotron
• UO
  University of Adelaide
• CS
  China Scholarship Council