Pairing N‐Vacancy and Adjacent Ni‐Sites in the Local Microenvironment to Regulate the Urea Oxidation Reaction Pathway With Enhanced Kinetics

Abstract The urea oxidation reaction (UOR) is a promising approach for replacing the oxygen evolution reaction in hydrogen production, offering lower energy consumption. However, the kinetics of Ni‐based catalysts for UOR are hindered by the high formation potential of NiOOH and its repeated transition with Ni(OH) 2 . In this study, a local microenvironment featuring electron‐deficient N‐vacancies (V N ) paired with adjacent electron‐rich Ni‐sites on Ni 3 N (Ni 3 N‐V N ) to enhance UOR kinetics is constructed. The electron‐rich Ni‐sites significantly reduce the energy barrier for NiOOH formation and promote the conversion of Ni(OH) 2 to NiOOH. Meanwhile, the V N sites induce low charge transfer resistance in…

• NN
  National Natural Science Foundation of China

  Awards: 22376110, 52302272, 62227815
• NS
  Natural Science Foundation of Shandong Province

  Awards: ts201712030, ZR2024JQ037, ZR2022QB023
• QU
  Qingdao University

  Awards: GZRC202006, ZKT10