Emerging transition metal and carbon nanomaterial hybrids as electrocatalysts for water splitting: a brief review

Abstract

Electrocatalytic water splitting has appeared to be a sustainable green technology for hydrogen and oxygen production, and noble metal-based electrocatalysts, like Pt for hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) and RuO2/IrO2 for...

Transition metal-based electrocatalysts for alkaline overall water splitting: advancements, challenges, and perspectives

“…71 These materials have been reported to be highly active towards the electrocatalytic HER or OER with both high electrocatalytic activity and stability. 72,73 Moreover, some of them have also been revealed to possess bifunctional properties, which could simultaneously accelerate the HER and OER, thus enabling them to be promising electrocatalysts for commercial utilization. In the literature, there are many studies on Ni toward OWS reactions, and Ni is an Earth-abundant metal with exceptional catalytic activity because of its electronic structure.…”

Strongly Coupled Heterostructured CoP/MoO2 as an Advanced Electrocatalyst for Urea-Assisted Water Electrolysis

“…In the classical water electrolysis system, the half-reactions of the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) and the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) can occur simultaneously on the surfaces of the cathode and anode, respectively. Unfortunately, the OER involves larger energy barriers and multistep proton-coupled electron transfer processes, which are regarded as the bottleneck of water splitting and greatly limit the widespread use of electrolytic hydrogen production technology. − Therefore, it is imperative to enhance the energy conversion efficiency and minimize electrical energy consumption in water-splitting systems. To address this issue, two promising approaches are the development of advanced OER catalysts to reduce overpotentials and the exploration of small-molecule oxidation reactions (e.g., hydrazine, urea, methanol, glycerol) at lower thermodynamic voltages as an alternative to the OER, which hold great promise for significantly enhancing the energy conversion efficiency in water electrolysis. − Notably, the electrooxidation of urea is highly desirable due to its unique ability to simultaneously generate hydrogen energy and purify urea-rich sewage.…”

Improved catalytic activity on transitioning from inverse to normal spinel in Zn2−xGa2xSn1−xO4: a robust bifunctional OER and HER electrocatalyst

“…The high cost and scarcity of noble metal-based catalysts can hinder large-scale application. 15,16 In order to hasten large-scale applications in electrochemical reactions, a low cost, earth abundant, bifunctional HER/OER catalyst is in urgent need. 17…”