Stable Seawater Electrolysis Over 10 000 H via Chemical Fixation of Sulfate on NiFeBa‐LDH
Haocheng Chen, Pingying Liu, Wenbo Li, Wenwen Xu, Yingjie Wen, Sixie Zhang, Li Yi, Yeqi Dai, Xu Chen, Sheng Dai, Ziqi Tian, Liang Chen, Zhiyi Lu
Abstract
Abstract Although hydrogen production through seawater electrolysis combined with offshore renewable energy can significantly reduce the cost, the corrosive anions in seawater strictly limit the commercialization of direct seawater electrolysis technology. Here, it is discovered that electrolytic anode can be uniformly protected in a seawater environment by constructing NiFeBa‐LDH catalyst assisted with additional SO 4 2− in the electrolyte. In experiments, the NiFeBa‐LDH achieves unprecedented stability over 10 000 h at 400 mA cm −2 in both alkaline saline electrolyte and alkaline seawater. Characterizations and simulations reveal that the atomically dispersed Ba 2+ enables the chemical fixation of free SO 4 2− on the surface, which generates a dense SO 4 2− layer to repel Cl − along with the preferentially adsorbed SO 4 2− in the presence of an applied electric field. In terms of the simplicity and effectiveness of catalyst design, it is confident that it can be a beacon for the commercialization of seawater electrolysis technology.