Ultrathin MoS2 nanosheets decorated on NiSe nanowire arrays as advanced trifunctional electrocatalyst for overall water splitting and urea electrolysis

• Published in: Journal of industrial and engineering chemistry (Seoul, Korea) 2023, 121(0), , pp.510-518
• Main Authors: Li, Yan, Bao, Weiwei, Zhang, Junjun, Ai, Taotao, Wu, Dan, Wang, Han, Yang, Chunming, Feng, Liangliang
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Heterostructure; Interface engineering; Overall water splitting; Trifunctional catalyst; Urea oxidation; 화학공학
• ISSN: 1226-086X; 1876-794X
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jiec.2023.02.006

NiSe@MoS2/NF heterojunction trifunctional electrocatalyst with unique nanostructure, representing outstanding activity in alkaline media. [Display omitted] •The interface engineering between NiSe and MoS2 was constructed by hydrothermal method to enable in situ construction of heterojunction trifunctional composite electrode NiSe@MoS2/NF.•NiSe@MoS2/NF exhibits excellent overall water splitting with optimizing OER and HER, even achieves outstanding strategy for urea assisted hydrolysis.•The formation of heterogeneous interface between NiSe nanowires and MoS2 nanosheets has a favourable synergistic effect, which accelerates electron transfer, and also promotes the oxidation of urea and water, truly realizing the strategy of energy saving by urea assisted hydrolysis. Developing highly-efficient and low-cost electrocatalysts act as pressing impacts on the flourishing of hydrogen energy, including electrochemical water splitting is a kind of prevailing energy conversion technology. However, it is hampered by the high activation barrier of oxygen evolution reaction (OER). Herein, a hybrid electrocatalyst with trifunctional and 3D core–shell structure is designed by hydrothermal process in order to achieve outstanding OER, hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) and urea oxidation reaction (UOR) properties. NiSe@MoS2/NF catalyst is composed of the heterogeneous interface formed by NiSe nanowire arrays which supported by nickel foam and MoS2 nanosheets. The synergistic effect and strong electronic interaction between the interface display the dominant impact of OER, HER and UOR. Especially in basic electrolyte, the potential is as low as 310 mV at 100 mA cm−2, even Tafel slope is 70.8 mV dec-1, representing the predominant OER property. The HER and UOR also demonstrate enormous prospect with 210, 233 mV at 100 mA cm−2. When NiSe@MoS2/NF||NiSe@MoS2/NF catalyst as anode and cathode, only requires potential of 1.48 V at 10 mA cm−2 for overall water splitting test. The work offers a plain, high-efficiency and inexpensive method to evolve the progressive trifunctional electrocatalysts for other energy-related applications.