Single Atoms and Clusters Based Nanomaterials for Hydrogen Evolution, Oxygen Evolution Reactions, and Full Water Splitting

Designing and constructing bifunctional electrocatalysts is vital for water splitting. Particularly, the rational interface engineering can effectively modify the active sites and promote the electronic transfer, leading to the improved splitting efficiency. Herein, free-standing and defect-rich heterogeneous MoS2/NiS2 nanosheets for overall water splitting are designed. The abundant heterogeneous interfaces in MoS2/NiS2 can not only provide rich electroactive sites but also facilitate the electron transfer, which further cooperate synergistically toward electrocatalytic reactions. Consequently, the optimal MoS2/NiS2 nanosheets show the enhanced electrocatalytic performances as bifunctional electrocatalysts for overall water splitting. This study may open up a new route for rationally constructing heterogeneous interfaces to maximize their electrochemical performances, which may help to accelerate the development of nonprecious electrocatalysts for overall water splitting.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/advs.201900246

Defect-Rich Heterogeneous MoS2/NiS2 Nanosheets Electrocatalysts for Efficient Overall Water Splitting.

The continuously increasing CO2 released from human activities poses a great threat to human survival by fluctuating global climate and disturbing carbon balance among the four reservoirs of the biosphere, earth, air, and water. Converting CO2 to value-added feedstocks via electrocatalysis of the CO2 reduction reaction (CO2RR) has been regarded as one of the most attractive routes to re-balance the carbon cycle, thanks to its multiple advantages of mild operating conditions, easy handling, tunable products and the potential of synergy with the rapidly increasing renewable energy (i.e., solar, wind). Instead of focusing on a special topic of electrocatalysts for the CO2RR that have been extensively reviewed elsewhere, we herein present a rather comprehensive review of the recent research progress, in the view of associated value-added products upon selective electrocatalytic CO2 conversion. We initially provide an overview of the history and the fundamental science regarding the electrocatalytic CO2RR, with a special introduction to the design, preparation, and performance evaluation of electrocatalysts, the factors influencing the CO2RR, and the associated theoretical calculations. Emphasis will then be given to the emerging trends of selective electrocatalytic conversion of CO2 into a variety of value-added products. The structure-performance relationship and mechanism will also be discussed and investigated. The outlooks for CO2 electrocatalysis, including the challenges and opportunities in the development of new electrocatalysts, electrolyzers, the recently rising operando fundamental studies, and the feasibility of industrial applications are finally summarized.

Electrocatalysis for CO2 conversion: from fundamentals to value-added products

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/adfm.202003261

Bifunctional Heterostructured Transition Metal Phosphides for Efficient Electrochemical Water Splitting

Multifunctional Transition Metal-Based Phosphides in Energy-Related Electrocatalysis

Developing high-active and low-cost bifunctional materials for catalyzing the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) and oxygen evolution reaction (OER) holds a pivotal role in water splitting. Therefore, we present a new strategy to form NiS/Ni2P heterostructures. The as-obtained NiS/Ni2P/carbon cloth (CC) requires overpotentials of 111 mV for the HER and 265 mV for the OER to reach a current density of 20 mA cm-2, outperforming their counterparts such as NiS and Ni2P under the same conditions. Additionally, the NiS/Ni2P/CC electrode requires a 1.67 V cell voltage to deliver 10 mA cm-2 in a two-electrode electrolysis system, which is comparable to the cell using the benchmark Pt/C||RuO2 electrode. Detailed characterizations reveal that strong electronic interactions between NiS and Ni2P, abundant active sites, and smaller charge-transfer resistance contribute to the improved HER and OER activity.

/pdf/engineering-nis-ni2p-heterostructures-for-efficient-k0yqb912vt.pdf

Engineering NiS/Ni2P Heterostructures for Efficient Electrocatalytic Water Splitting

It is highly desirable to develop efficient and low-cost catalysts to minimize the overpotential of the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) for large-scale hydrogen production from electrochemical water splitting. Doping a foreign element into the host catalysts has been proposed as an effective approach to optimize the electronic characteristics of catalysts and thus improve their electrocatalytic performance. Herein we, for the first time, report vanadium-doped CoP on self-supported conductive carbon cloth (V-CoP/CC) as a robust HER electrocatalyst, which achieves ultra-low overpotentials of 71, 123 and 47 mV to afford a current density of 10 mA cm−2 in 1 M KOH, 1 M PBS and 0.5 M H2SO4 media, respectively. Meanwhile, the V-CoP/CC electrode exhibits a small Tafel slope and superior long-term stability over a wide pH range. Detailed characterizations reveal that the modulation of the electronic structure contributes to the superior HER performance of V-CoP/CC. We believe that doping engineering opens up new opportunities to improve the HER catalytic activity of transition metal phosphides through regulating their physicochemical and electrochemical properties.

/pdf/electronic-modulation-of-transition-metal-phosphide-via-3cv8vzxrmf.pdf

Xingxing Jiang

Papers

Engineering NiS/Ni2P Heterostructures for Efficient Electrocatalytic Water Splitting

Electronic modulation of transition metal phosphide via doping as efficient and pH-universal electrocatalysts for hydrogen evolution reaction

Artificial photosynthesis of ethanol using type-II g-C3N4/ZnTe heterojunction in photoelectrochemical CO2 reduction system

Graphene oxide wrapped CH3NH3PbBr3 perovskite quantum dots hybrid for photoelectrochemical CO2 reduction in organic solvents

In Situ Growth of Ru Nanoparticles on (Fe,Ni)(OH)2 to Boost Hydrogen Evolution Activity at High Current Density in Alkaline Media