Revealing the promoting effect of heterojunction on NiSx/MoO2 in urea oxidation assisted water electrolysis

Yitao Hu; Ruotong Liu; Kaiqian Shu; Yan Dong; Jihong Li; Tongzhou Wang; Yida Deng

doi:10.1016/j.jcis.2024.11.202

Revealing the promoting effect of heterojunction on NiS_x/MoO₂ in urea oxidation assisted water electrolysis

J Colloid Interface Sci. 2024 Nov 28:682:180-187. doi: 10.1016/j.jcis.2024.11.202. Online ahead of print.

Authors

Yitao Hu¹, Ruotong Liu¹, Kaiqian Shu², Yan Dong¹, Jihong Li³, Tongzhou Wang⁴, Yida Deng⁵

Affiliations

¹ School of Materials Science and Engineering, Hainan University, Haikou 570228, China.
² State Key Laboratory of Environment-Friendly Energy Materials, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Southwest University of Science and Technology, Mianyang 621010, China.
³ School of Materials Science and Engineering, Hainan University, Haikou 570228, China; Key Laboratory of Pico Electron Microscopy of Hainan Province, Hainan University, Haikou 570228, Hainan Province, China. Electronic address: jihong_18@hainanu.edu.cn.
⁴ School of Materials Science and Engineering, Hainan University, Haikou 570228, China; Key Laboratory of Pico Electron Microscopy of Hainan Province, Hainan University, Haikou 570228, Hainan Province, China. Electronic address: wangtz@hainanu.edu.cn.
⁵ School of Materials Science and Engineering, Hainan University, Haikou 570228, China; Key Laboratory of Pico Electron Microscopy of Hainan Province, Hainan University, Haikou 570228, Hainan Province, China.

PMID: 39616648
DOI: 10.1016/j.jcis.2024.11.202

Abstract

Investigating efficient non-precious metal-based catalysts for water electrolysis to produce hydrogen is a significant and urgent need in the field of clean energy technologies. Moreover, utilizing transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) to replace the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) with the urea oxidation reaction (UOR), coupled with the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER), is an effective energy-saving hydrogen production method. A heterostructure NiS_x/MoO₂ catalyst was prepared by a simple method, which exhibits excellent activity for UOR, requiring only 1.4 V to reach 100 mA cm^-2. The high performance is attributed to the presence of the heterostructure, which effectively promotes charge redistribution and optimizes the electronic structure of the catalyst, thereby enhancing its adsorption capacity for intermediates. As a result, an electrolyzer assembled with NiS_x/MoO₂ as a bifunctional catalyst demonstrates excellent catalytic activity, ensures stability for over 200 h at a current density of 10 mA cm^-2, and achieves a hydrogen production rate of 0.402 mmol h^-1 at a potential of 1.8 V.

Keywords: Heterostructure; Hydrogen production; Transition metal dichalcogenides; Urea oxidation reaction.