Shape-controlled noble metal nanocrystals (NCs), such as Au, Ag, Pt, Pd, Ru, and Rh are of great success due to their new and enhanced properties and applications in chemical conversion, fuel cells, and sensors, but the realization of shape control of Ir NCs for achieving enhanced electrocatalysis remains a significant challenge. Herein, we report an efficient solution method for a new class of three-dimensional (3D) Ir superstructure that consists of ultrathin Ir nanosheets as subunits. Electrochemical studies show that it delivers the excellent electrocatalytic activity toward oxygen evolution reaction (OER) in alkaline condition with an onset potential at 1.43 V versus reversible hydrogen electrode (RHE) and a very low Tafel slope of 32.7 mV decade(-1). In particular, it even shows superior performance for OER in acidic solutions with the low onset overpotential of 1.45 V versus RHE and small Tafel slope of 40.8 mV decade(-1), which are much better than those of small Ir nanoparticles (NPs). The 3D Ir superstructures also exhibit good stability under acidic condition with the potential shift of less than 20 mV after 8 h i-t test. The present work highlights the importance of tuning 3D structures of Ir NCs for enhancing OER performance.
The development of bifunctional electrocatalysts for overall water splitting in acidic media is vital for polymer electrolyte membrane (PEM) electrolyzers, but still full of obstacles. Here, highly efficient acidic overall water splitting is realized by utilizing ultrasmall, monodispersed Iridium (Ir)‐based nanoclusters (NCs) as the candidate, via a surfactant‐free, wet‐chemical, and large‐scalable strategy. Benefiting from the high specific surface area, clean surface, and strong binding between NCs and supports, the IrM NCs exhibit attractive activities and durability for both oxygen evolution reaction and hydrogen evolution reaction in acidic electrolytes, with IrNi NCs showing the best performance. More significantly, in the overall water splitting, IrNi NCs reach 10 mA cm−2 at a cell voltage of only 1.58 V in 0.5 m H2SO4 electrolyte, holding promises for potential implementation of PEM water electrolysis. This work opens a new avenue toward designing bifunctional “acidic stable” catalysts for efficient overall water splitting.
MXenes have attracted great interests as supercapacitors due to their metallic conductivity, high density, and hydrophilic nature. Herein we report Ti3C2‐Cu/Co hybrids via molten salt etching in which the existence of metal atoms and their interactions with MXene via surficial O atoms were elucidated by XAFS for the first time. The electrochemical investigation of Ti3C2‐Cu electrode demonstrated the pseudocapacitive contribution of Cu and a splendid specific capacitance of 885.0 F g−1 at 0.5 A g−1 in 1.0 M H2SO4. Symmetric supercapacitor Ti3C2‐Cu//Ti3C2‐Cu was demonstrated with operating voltage of 1.6 V, areal capacitance of 290.5 mF cm−2 at 1 mA cm−2, and stability over 10 000 cycles. It delivered an areal energy density of 103.3 μWh cm−2 at power density of 0.8 mW cm−2, based on which a supercapacitor pouch was fabricated. It provides deeper insights into the molten salt mechanism and strategies for designing MXene‐based materials for electrochemical energy storage.
Trimetallic oxyhydroxides are one of the most effective materials for oxygen evolution reaction (OER) catalysis, a key process for water splitting. Herein, we describe a facile wet-chemical method to directly grow a series of coralloid trimetallic oxyhydroxides on arbitrary substrates such as nickel foam (NF) and carbon nanotubes (CNTs). The amount of iron in these oxyhydroxide sponges on NF and CNTs was precisely controlled, revealing that the electrocatalytic activity of the WCoFe trimetallic oxyhydroxides depends on the Fe amount in a volcano-like fashion. The optimized W Co Fe /NF catalyst exhibited an overpotential of only 310 mV to deliver a large current density of 100 mA cm and a very low Tafel slope of 32 mV dec . It also showed superior stability with negligible activity decay after use in the OER for 21 days (>500 h). X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy revealed that the addition of Fe leads to an on average lower Co oxidation state, which contributes to the enhanced OER performance.
While engineering the phase and structure of electrocatalysts could regulate the performance of many typical electrochemical processes, its importance to the carbon dioxide electroreduction has been largely unexplored. Herein, a series of phase and structure engineered copper-tin dioxide catalysts have been created and thoroughly exploited for the carbon dioxide electroreduction to correlate performance with their unique structures and phases. The copper oxide/hollow tin dioxide heterostructure catalyst exhibits promising performance, which can tune the products from carbon monoxide to formic acid at high faradaic efficiency by simply changing the electrolysis potentials from −0.7 VRHE to −1.0 VRHE. The excellent performance is attributed to the abundant copper/tin dioxide interfaces involved in the copper oxide/hollow tin dioxide heterostructure during the electrochemical process, decreasing the reaction free-energies for the formation of COOH* species. Our work reported herein emphasizes the importance of phase and structure modulating of catalysts for enhancing electrochemical CO2 reduction and beyond.
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