Recent progress with electrocatalysts for urea electrolysis in alkaline media for energy-saving hydrogen production

The clean and renewable "hydrogen energy economy" era is coming. In this regard, the pathway for hydrogen production is of utmost importance. Recently, diligent urea (CO(NH 2 ) 2 ) electrolysis has been explored as a promising energy-saving avenue for sustainable hydrogen production in com...

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Published inCatalysis science & technology Vol. 1; no. 6; pp. 1567 - 1581
Main Authors Sun, Xiujuan, Ding, Rui
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Cambridge Royal Society of Chemistry 24.03.2020
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ISSN2044-4753
2044-4761
DOI10.1039/c9cy02618e

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Summary:The clean and renewable "hydrogen energy economy" era is coming. In this regard, the pathway for hydrogen production is of utmost importance. Recently, diligent urea (CO(NH 2 ) 2 ) electrolysis has been explored as a promising energy-saving avenue for sustainable hydrogen production in comparison with conventional water (H 2 O) electrolysis because of the low cell voltage, remediation of urea-rich wastewater and abundant electrocatalysts. Numerous non-precious materials (especially nickel-based ones) show potential as electrocatalysts for urea electrolysis in alkaline media and massive efforts are underway to improve the kinetics and thermodynamics. In this review, we firstly introduce the fundamentals of the energy-saving urea electrolysis system. Next, the recent advances with electrocatalysts for urea electrolysis are summarized. Then, the relationship between structure and activity is discussed. Finally, the remaining challenges and the future outlook are pointed out for the development of advanced bifunctional electrocatalysts, new approaches for catalyst synthesis, solar-driven urea electrolysis and electrocatalytic mechanisms for Ni-free catalysts. Urea electrolysis is a promising energy-saving avenue for hydrogen production owing to the low cell voltage, wastewater remediation and abundant electrocatalysts.
Bibliography:ACS Catalysis
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Xiujuan Sun received her Ph.D. degree in Physical Chemistry from Changchun Institute of Applied Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2015. She joined the College of Chemistry, Xiangtan University in 2018 as a lecturer. Her research interests focus on: (1) design and synthesis of noble-free electrocatalysts for the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR), including Fe-/F-doped compounds; (2) developing efficient Ni-based bifunctional electrocatalysts for overall urea splitting and urea fuel cells. She has published 9 SCI papers as the first or co-first author in popular journals such as
Rui Ding is currently an Associate Professor in the College of Chemistry at Xiangtan University. He received his Ph.D. degree in Physical Chemistry from Changchun Institute of Applied Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2014. He worked as an engineer at EVE Battery, Foxconn, LG Chem, ENN and SinoChem in 2007-2010. His research interests focus on advanced electrode materials for energy storage and conversion (supercapacitors, secondary batteries, fuel cells, electrolysis
Advanced Materials
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He has published more than 30 SCI papers as the first/corresponding author, currently with over 1000 citations. His current H-index is 21 (from Publons).
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ISSN:2044-4753
2044-4761
DOI:10.1039/c9cy02618e