The novel dual-category active sites of NiCoP/CoP as high-performance electrocatalyst for urea electrolysis and synergistic hydrogen production

Abstract

The novel 3D “Fistular onion flower” CNCP-350 benefits from the abundance of dual-category activity sites, demonstrating an excellent efficient catalytic performance in UOR and HER.

Abstract

Combining the urea oxidation reaction (UOR) instead of the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) with the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) is a promising method to generate H ₂ with low-energy absorption and alleviate the environmental impact of urea wastewater. The unique “Fistular onion flower” NiCoP/CoP was synthesized at different temperatures, denoted as CNCP- T ( T indicates the temperature, T = 200, 300, 350, and 400 °C). Significantly, NiCoP/CoP overcomes the limitation of a single type of active site for the catalyst, and the combination of CoP and NiCoP could provide two different types of active sites for applications in UOR. The dual-category active sites of CNCP-350 demonstrate highly efficient bifunctional catalytic activity in the UOR and HER. Particularly, in the urea electrolyzer (HER‖UOR), CNCP-350‖CNCP-350 exhibits a low cell voltage of 1.355 V at 10 mA cm ⁻². In this work, we achieve efficient UOR to assist in hydrogen production by implementing a synergistic strategy of dual-category active sites and demonstrate its potential feasibility for practical applications in efficient hydrogen production technology.