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Cai Z, Wang P, Zhao X, Bu X, Zhang J, Chen Y, Xu J, Yan Y, Chen A, Wang X. Ultralow-iridium content NiIr alloy derivative nanochain arrays as bifunctional electrocatalysts for overall water splitting. RSC Adv 2023; 13:17315-17323. [PMID: 37304768 PMCID: PMC10249465 DOI: 10.1039/d3ra01845h] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/21/2023] [Accepted: 05/30/2023] [Indexed: 06/13/2023] Open
Abstract
The development of low-cost and high-durability bifunctional electrocatalysts is of considerable importance for overall water splitting (OWS). This work reports the controlled synthesis of nickel-iridium alloy derivative nanochain array electrodes (NiIrx NCs) with fully exposed active sites that facilitated mass transfer for efficient OWS. The nanochains have a self-supported three-dimensional core-shell structure, composed of a metallic NiIrx core and a thin (5-10 nm) amorphous (hydr)oxide film as the shell (e.g., IrO2/NiIrx and Ni(OH)2/NiIrx). Interestingly, NiIrx NCs have bifunctional properties. Particularly, the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) current density (electrode geometrical area) of NiIr1 NCs is four times higher than that of IrO2 at 1.6 V vs. RHE. Meanwhile, its hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) overpotential at 10 mA cm-2 (η10 = 63 mV) is comparable to that of 10 wt% Pt/C. These performances may originate from the interfacial effect between the surface (hydr)oxide shell and metallic NiIrx core, which facilitates the charge transfer, along with the synergistic effect between Ni2+ and Ir4+ in the (hydr)oxide shell. Furthermore, NiIr1 NCs exhibits excellent OER durability (100 h @ 200 mA cm-2) and OWS durability (100 h @ 500 mA cm-2) with the nanochain array structure well preserved. This work provides a promising route for developing effective bifunctional electrocatalysts for OWS applications.
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Affiliation(s)
- Zhengyang Cai
- School of Materials and Chemistry, University of Shanghai for Science and Technology 200093 Shanghai P. R. China
- Energy Materials Research Center Institute of Ceramics, Chinese Academy of Sciences 200050 Shanghai P. R. China
| | - Ping Wang
- Energy Materials Research Center Institute of Ceramics, Chinese Academy of Sciences 200050 Shanghai P. R. China
| | - Xianglong Zhao
- School of Science, Shandong Jianzhu University Jinan 250101 P. R. China
| | - Xiuming Bu
- Energy Materials Research Center Institute of Ceramics, Chinese Academy of Sciences 200050 Shanghai P. R. China
| | - Jiajia Zhang
- Energy Materials Research Center Institute of Ceramics, Chinese Academy of Sciences 200050 Shanghai P. R. China
| | - Yuhao Chen
- School of Materials and Chemistry, University of Shanghai for Science and Technology 200093 Shanghai P. R. China
- Energy Materials Research Center Institute of Ceramics, Chinese Academy of Sciences 200050 Shanghai P. R. China
| | - Jingcheng Xu
- School of Materials and Chemistry, University of Shanghai for Science and Technology 200093 Shanghai P. R. China
| | - Ya Yan
- Energy Materials Research Center Institute of Ceramics, Chinese Academy of Sciences 200050 Shanghai P. R. China
| | - Aiying Chen
- School of Materials and Chemistry, University of Shanghai for Science and Technology 200093 Shanghai P. R. China
| | - Xianying Wang
- Energy Materials Research Center Institute of Ceramics, Chinese Academy of Sciences 200050 Shanghai P. R. China
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Ding J, Yang H, Zhang S, Liu Q, Cao H, Luo J, Liu X. Advances in the Electrocatalytic Hydrogen Evolution Reaction by Metal Nanoclusters-based Materials. SMALL (WEINHEIM AN DER BERGSTRASSE, GERMANY) 2022; 18:e2204524. [PMID: 36287086 DOI: 10.1002/smll.202204524] [Citation(s) in RCA: 34] [Impact Index Per Article: 17.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/22/2022] [Revised: 09/27/2022] [Indexed: 05/27/2023]
Abstract
With the development of renewable energy systems, clean hydrogen is burgeoning as an optimal alternative to fossil fuels, in which its application is promising to retarding the global energy and environmental crisis. The hydrogen evolution reaction (HER), capable of producing high-purity hydrogen rapidly in electrocatalytic water splitting, has received much attention. Abundant research about HER has been done, focusing on advanced electrocatalyst design with high efficiency and robust stability. As potential HER catalysts, metal nanoclusters (MNCs) have been studied extensively. They are composed of several to a hundred metal atoms, with sizes being comparable to the Fermi wavelength of electrons, that is, < 2.0 nm. Different from metal atoms/nanoparticles, they exhibit unique catalytic properties due to their quantum size effect and low-coordination environment. In this review, the activity-enhancing approaches of MNCs applied in HER electrocatalysis are mainly summarized. Furthermore, recent progress in MNCs classified with different stabilization strategies, that is, the freestanding MNCs, MNCs with organic, metal and carbon supports, are introduced. Finally, the current challenges and deficiencies of these MNCs for HER are prospected.
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Affiliation(s)
- Junyang Ding
- Center for Electron Microscopy and Tianjin Key Lab of Advanced Functional Porous Materials, Institute for New Energy Materials & Low-Carbon Technologies, School of Materials, Tianjin University of Technology, Tianjin, 300384, China
| | - Hui Yang
- Key Laboratory of Display Materials and Photoelectric Devices (Ministry of Education), Tianjin Key Laboratory for Photoelectric Materials and Devices, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Tianjin University of Technology, Tianjin, 300384, China
| | - Shusheng Zhang
- College of Chemistry, Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou, 450000, China
| | - Qian Liu
- Institute for Advanced Study, Chengdu University, Chengdu, Sichuan, 610106, China
| | - Huanqi Cao
- Key Laboratory of Display Materials and Photoelectric Devices (Ministry of Education), Tianjin Key Laboratory for Photoelectric Materials and Devices, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Tianjin University of Technology, Tianjin, 300384, China
| | - Jun Luo
- Center for Electron Microscopy and Tianjin Key Lab of Advanced Functional Porous Materials, Institute for New Energy Materials & Low-Carbon Technologies, School of Materials, Tianjin University of Technology, Tianjin, 300384, China
| | - Xijun Liu
- MOE Key Laboratory of New Processing Technology for Non-Ferrous Metals and Materials, and Guangxi Key Laboratory of Processing for Non-Ferrous Metals and Featured Materials, School of Resource, Environments and Materials, Guangxi University, Nanning, 530004, China
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Controllable Construction of IrCo Nanoclusters and the Performance for Water Electrolysis. Catalysts 2022. [DOI: 10.3390/catal12080914] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/16/2022] Open
Abstract
Finding a suitable catalyst is an important research direction in hydrogen (H2) production from water electrolysis. We report a synthetic method to obtain IrxCo/C clusters by polyol reduction. The catalyst is small in size and can be evenly distributed. The Ir3Co/C cluster catalyst had very good activity under acidic conditions. The overpotential of the best-performing Ir3Co/C cluster for the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) and the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) is only 290 mV and 91 mV when 10 mA cm−2 and 100 mA cm−2. The catalyst performance may be improved because of the synergistic effect and the small size of the prepared catalyst, which accelerates proton transfer. This approach offers a strategy to reduce costs while improving catalytic activity.
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Liu Q, Wang X, Li L, Song K, Wang Y, Qian P. Catalytic activity, thermal stability and structural evolution of PdCu single-atom alloy catalysts: the effects of size and morphology. RSC Adv 2021; 12:62-71. [PMID: 35424490 PMCID: PMC8978693 DOI: 10.1039/d1ra07581k] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/13/2021] [Accepted: 12/02/2021] [Indexed: 11/21/2022] Open
Abstract
Single-atom alloys (SAAs) have been emerging as an important field of research in electrocatalysis owing to extremely high atom utilization, unique structure and high catalytic activity. In this work, the catalytic properties and thermal stability of PdCu SAAs with a crown-jewel (CJ) structure are studied by density functional theory (DFT) calculations and the molecular dynamics (MD) simulation method. The DFT results reveal that CJ-structured PdCu SAAs show excellent HER and ORR catalytic performance, and can be regarded as a promising alternative to Pt catalysts towards the ORR or HER. Additionally, we attempt to explain the high catalytic activity of PdCu SAAs by electronic structure analysis. In addition, MD simulation results confirm the thermal stability of CJ-structured PdCu. More importantly, we found that CJ-structured PdCu clusters undergo a structural transformation from cuboctahedral (Cubo) to icosahedral (Ico) structure by heating or after the adsorption of reaction intermediate, which indicates that Cubo is less stable than the Ico structure. Besides, Cubo-Ico transformation is size-dependent and only found in small clusters. Furthermore, the effects of size and morphology on melting properties are discussed. The melting point increases as cluster size increases, which agrees well with Pawlow's law.
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Affiliation(s)
- Qing Liu
- Beijing Advanced Innovation Center for Materials Genome Engineering, University of Science and Technology Beijing Beijing 100083 China
- Department of Physics, University of Science and Technology Beijing Beijing 100083 China
| | | | - Lu Li
- Beijing Advanced Innovation Center for Materials Genome Engineering, University of Science and Technology Beijing Beijing 100083 China
- Department of Physics, University of Science and Technology Beijing Beijing 100083 China
| | - Keke Song
- Beijing Advanced Innovation Center for Materials Genome Engineering, University of Science and Technology Beijing Beijing 100083 China
- Department of Physics, University of Science and Technology Beijing Beijing 100083 China
| | - Yanzhou Wang
- Beijing Advanced Innovation Center for Materials Genome Engineering, University of Science and Technology Beijing Beijing 100083 China
- Department of Physics, University of Science and Technology Beijing Beijing 100083 China
| | - Ping Qian
- Beijing Advanced Innovation Center for Materials Genome Engineering, University of Science and Technology Beijing Beijing 100083 China
- Department of Physics, University of Science and Technology Beijing Beijing 100083 China
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