Rare earth-based nanomaterials in electrocatalysis

Interfacial Coupling of Gadolinium-2-methylimidazole Metal Organic Framework and 2D-g-C3N4 Nanosheet for Synergistically Enhanced Bifunctional Oxygen Electrocatalysis

“…The unfilled 4f orbital electrons of Gd metals expedite electron transfer to water molecules, facilitating the subsequent dissociation of O–H bonds to complete the Volmer step. Simultaneously, the half-space valence orbitals of rare earth elements aid in H atom adsorption onto the catalyst surface, completing the Tafel step. , The robust coordination and mutual coupling within rare-earth-based MOFs contribute to maintaining material stability during electrocatalytic reactions, ensuring commendable electrochemical stability. The ORR efficiency of the synthesized electrocatalysts is also compared with g-C 3 N 4 and MOFs based compounds, as shown in Table .…”

Rare earth oxide based electrocatalysts: synthesis, properties and applications

“…The special 4f electronic configuration of RE elements gives them many excellent optical, electrical, magnetic, thermal and other properties. 5–8 In addition, their chemical properties are very active, and they can form a wide variety of new materials with various functions and uses with other elements. They play an irreplaceable role in the fields of magnetism, lasers, optical fiber communications, superconducting materials and so on.…”

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.…”