Electrochemical Oxidation of Urea on NiCu Alloy Nanoparticles Decorated Carbon Nanofibers

Abstract

Bimetallic Cu3.8Ni alloy nanoparticles (NPs)-anchored carbon nanofibers (composite NFs) were synthesized using a simple electrospinning machine. XRD, SEM, TEM, and TGA were employed to examine the physiochemical characteristics of these composite NFs. The characterization techniques proved that Cu3.8Ni alloy NPs-anchored carbon NFs were successfully fabricated. Urea oxidation (UO) processes as a source of hydrogen and electrical energy were investigated using the fabricated composite NFs. The corresponding onset potential of UO and the oxidation current density (OCD) were measured via cyclic voltammetry as 380 mV versus Ag/AgCl electrode and 98 mA/cm2, respectively. Kinetic study indicated that the electrochemical oxidation of urea followed the diffusion controlled process and the reaction order is 0.5 with respect to urea concentration. The diffusion coefficient of urea using the introduced electrocatalyst was found to be 6.04 × 10−3 cm2/s. Additionally, the composite NFs showed steady state stability for 900 s using chronoamperometry test.

Catalytic and Photocatalytic Electrospun Nanofibers for Hydrogen Generation from Ammonia Borane Complex: A Review

“…Electrospun fibers have extensive applications in industries such as air filtration, water purification [43,44], fabrication of sensors and biosensors [45], medical and biomedical applications (e.g., soft-tissue engineering, encapsulation of bioactive species, regenerative medicine, drug delivery fuel, and cell membranes) [45,46], antibiotics [47][48][49][50], environmental protection [51], smart textiles, surface coatings, and energy harvesting [33,52], conversion, catalysis [34,53], and storage, among others. Several valuable reviews have been published for the utilization of electrospun NFs in different application areas; a list of some of them is provided in Table 1.…”

“…Historically, several methods have been applied to produce fibers of different dimensions. These methods include drawing, self-assembly [ 26 , 27 ], phase separation [ 27 , 28 ], template synthesis [ 27 ], and electrospinning (ES) [ 9 , 29 , 30 , 31 , 32 , 33 , 34 , 35 ]. Each production technique has its merits and demerits, and ES has been acknowledged as one of the most effective techniques to produce polymeric and ceramic fibers [ 9 , 31 , 35 , 36 , 37 , 38 ].…”

Fabrication of biopolymer nanofibers from natural sources

“…39 NFs are produced using various techniques, such as drawing, 40,41 template synthesis, 42,43 phase separation, 44,45 self-assembly, 24,46,47 and ES. 20,[48][49][50][51][52][53][54] Although all these techniques have certain drawbacks, ES is the most advantageous in terms of successful fabrication of numerous NF mats for various applications, such as water treatment, 55 oil-water separation, 56 desalination, 57 and making solid oxide fuel cells. 58 Polymer fibers with a size below microns are gaining more attention than those with larger diameters.…”

Coordination Polymer Framework-Derived Ni-N-Doped Carbon Nanotubes for Electro-Oxidation of Urea

“…Pure nickel-based electrocatalysts in UOR reactions have serious drawbacks like sluggish reaction kinetics, requirement of large overall potential and poor stability [ 21 , 22 ]. Recently, some researchers have improved the activity and stability of nickel-based catalysts by either morphological structure tuning using non-metal elements like boron, phosphorous, nitrogen, sulfur [ 23 ] to dope nickel and change its electronic properties or by alloying nickel with metals to form nickel alloys like NiFe [ 24 ], NiW [ 25 ], NiMo [ 26 ], NiCu [ 27 ], etc. However, there is one thing common in all of the abovementioned techniques, which is the necessity of hybridizing nickel-based electrocatalysts with conductive carbon materials like carbon fiber [ 28 ], carbon nanotubes [ 29 ], graphene [ 30 ], etc.…”