Coupling Interface Constructions of FeNi<sub>3</sub>-MoO<sub>2</sub> Heterostructures for Efficient Urea Oxidation and Hydrogen Evolution Reaction
Qinglian Xu, Tianqi Yu, Jinli Chen, Guangfu Qian, Hainong Song, Lin Luo, Yongli Chen, Tengyu Liu, Yizhe Wang, Shibin Yin
Abstract
Urea electrolysis has prospects for urea-containing wastewater purification and hydrogen (H2) production, but the shortage of cost-effective catalysts restricts its development. In this work, the tomentum-like FeNi3-MoO2 heterojunction nanosheets array self-supported on nickel foam (NF) as bifunctional catalyst is prepared by facile hydrothermal and annealing method. Only 1.29 V and −50.8 mV is required to obtain ±10 mA cm–2 for urea oxidation and hydrogen evolution reaction (UOR and HER), respectively, showing great bifunctional catalytic activity. For overall urea electrolysis, it only needs 1.37 V to reach 10 mA cm–2 and can last at 100 mA cm–2 for 70 h without obvious activity attenuation, showing outstanding durability. Coupling interface constructions of FeNi3-MoO2 heterostructures, novel morphology with a mesoporous and self-supporting structure could be the reason for this good performance. This work thus proposes a promising catalyst for boosting UOR and HER to realize efficient overall urea electrolysis.