China West Normal University

About: China West Normal University is a education organization based out in Nanchong, China. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Catalysis & Black hole. The organization has 4229 authors who have published 4169 publications receiving 60133 citations.

A Cost-Effective 3D Hydrogen Evolution Cathode with High Catalytic Activity: FeP Nanowire Array as the Active Phase

Abstract: Iron is the cheapest and one of the most abundant transition metals. Natural (FeFe)-hydrogenases exhibit remarkably high activity in hydrogen evolution, but they suffer from high oxygen sensitivity and difficulty in scale-up. Herein, an FeP nanowire array was developed on Ti plate (FeP NA/Ti) from its b-FeOOH NA/Ti precursor through a low- temperature phosphidation reaction. When applied as self- supported 3D hydrogen evolution cathode, the FeP NA/Ti electrode shows exceptionally high catalytic activity and good durability, and it only requires overpotentials of 55 and 127 mV to afford current densities of 10 and 100 mA cm 2 , respectively. The excellent electrocatalytic performance is promising for applications as non-noble-metal HER catalyst with a high performance-price ratio in electrochemical water splitting for large-scale hydrogen fuel production. Hydrogen as a promising clean chemical fuel is an ideal energy carrier for sustainable energy applications. (1) Electro- chemical reduction of water for hydrogen production is an important component of several emerging clean-energy technologies, but an efficient electrocatalyst for the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) is required to afford high current at low overpotential. (2) Although Pt-based catalysts show high catalytic performance, they suffer from high costs and the scarcity of Pt. (3) Water electrolysis based on proton exchange membrane (PEM) technology and many solar water splitting devices operate under strongly acidic conditions, (4) it is thus highly attractive to develop acid-stable HER catalysts made from earth-abundant elements. Catalysts based on Mo, W, and Fe-group elements have received great attention, includ-

Nitrogen and Phosphorus Dual-Doped Graphene/Carbon Nanosheets as Bifunctional Electrocatalysts for Oxygen Reduction and Evolution

Abstract: It is highly desirable but challenging to develop bifunctional catalysts for efficiently catalyzing both the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) and oxygen evolution reaction (OER) in energy storage and conversion systems. Here a simple yet cost-effective strategy is developed to fabricate nitrogen and phosphorus dual-doped graphene/carbon nanosheets (N,P-GCNS) with N,P-doped carbon sandwiching few-layers-thick graphene. The as-prepared N,P-GCNS shows outstanding catalytic activity toward both ORR and OER with a potential gap of 0.71 V between the OER potential at a current density of 10 mA cm–2 and the ORR potential at a current density of −3 mA cm–2, illustrating that it is the best metal-free bifunctional electrocatalysts reported to date. The superb bifunctional catalytic performance is attributed to the synergistic effects between the doped N and P atoms, the full exposure of the active sites on the surface of the N,P-GCNS nanosheets, the high conductivity of the incorporated graphene, and the large surf...