Article
Nanoscience & Nanotechnology
Lulu Wen, Xinyang Li, Rui Zhang, Huawei Liang, Qitao Zhang, Chenliang Su, Yu-Jia Zeng
Summary: Introducing oxygen vacancies is considered an effective method to accelerate the nitrogen reduction reaction, and Zn-Co3O4 nanopolyhedrons with abundant oxygen vacancies and high catalytic performance have been successfully prepared in this study. The catalyst shows high ammonia yield and faradaic efficiency, as well as excellent stability.
ACS APPLIED MATERIALS & INTERFACES
(2021)
Article
Chemistry, Physical
Jing Wang, Chao Cai, Yian Wang, Xuming Yang, Duojie Wu, Yuanmin Zhu, Menghao Li, Meng Gu, Minhua Shao
Summary: The electrochemical nitrate reduction reaction (NITRR) is an attractive method for ammonia synthesis. By designing ultrathin CoOx nanosheets with abundant surface oxygen as catalysts, the efficiency of NITRR can be increased, hydrogen evolution reaction can be suppressed, and the yield of ammonia can be enhanced.
Article
Engineering, Environmental
Mei Zhang, You Xu, Hugang Zhang, Zhongyao Duan, Tianlun Ren, Ziqiang Wang, Xiaonian Li, Liang Wang, Hongjing Wang
Summary: Pd-based materials show great potential as alternatives to Pt for oxygen reduction reactions (ORR). By modifying the electronic structure and support effect, the performance of Pd-based catalysts in ORR can be significantly improved. The proposed synthetic method provides a feasible approach for the rational design of heteroatoms-doped carbon-metal composites with high performance in ORR and other energy applications.
CHEMICAL ENGINEERING JOURNAL
(2022)
Article
Chemistry, Physical
Li Fu, Rongzi Xv, Wanqing Fang, Yimin Lin, Xiaoying Shang, Jun Chi, Hongmei Yu
Summary: In this study, cerium-doped cobalt carbonate hydroxide nanohybrids on nickel foam were synthesized and exhibited high oxygen evolution activity in electrochemical water splitting. By tailoring the electronic structure of the cobalt active center and producing a layered nanowire array/flower-like ball structure, the catalyst showed enhanced activity.
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF HYDROGEN ENERGY
(2023)
Article
Nanoscience & Nanotechnology
Xuetao Yang, Yanfang Ma, Yang Liu, Keke Wang, Yanqiu Wang, Min Liu, Xiaoqing Qiu, Wenzhang Li, Jie Li
Summary: Introducing and adjusting crystal defects in the host lattice of Bi2WO6 can enhance the NRR activity, leading to higher NH3 yield and FE. 10%Ce-Bi2WO6 exhibits superior performance in NH3 production compared to previously reported Bi-based and W-based catalysts.
ACS APPLIED MATERIALS & INTERFACES
(2021)
Article
Chemistry, Physical
Haibin Wang, Xiaoqiang Du, Xiaoshuang Zhang, Lu Li
Summary: In this study, a series of M-doped Co3O4 materials were grown on a Ni foam substrate, and it was found that doping with Ce significantly enhanced the water and urea oxidation performance, while doping with Ni and Fe reduced the performance. The experimental results suggest that the improved activity of the Ce-doped electrode can be attributed to faster electron transport capacity, higher exposure to active sites, and improved conductivity. This work provides a new approach to enhance the electrocatalytic activity of catalysts through doping strategy.
JOURNAL OF COLLOID AND INTERFACE SCIENCE
(2023)
Review
Chemistry, Multidisciplinary
Bin Wu, Haibing Meng, Dulce M. Morales, Feng Zeng, Junjiang Zhu, Bao Wang, Marcel Risch, Zhichuan J. Xu, Tristan Petit
Summary: Nitrogen-doped carbons are a rapidly growing class of materials for oxygen electrocatalysis, offering low cost, environmental friendliness, excellent conductivity, and scalable synthesis. They have the potential to replace precious metal-based electrocatalysts and reduce costs in energy conversion and storage systems.
ADVANCED FUNCTIONAL MATERIALS
(2022)
Letter
Chemistry, Multidisciplinary
Jing Wang, Yian Wang, Chao Cai, Yushen Liu, Duojie Wu, Maoyu Wang, Menghao Li, Xianbin Wei, Minhua Shao, Meng Gu
Summary: The electrochemical nitrate reduction reaction (NO3RR) is a promising alternative route to produce ammonia (NH3) sustainably. Cu-doped Fe3O4 flakes are fabricated and demonstrated to be excellent catalysts for electrochemical conversion of NO3- to NH3, with high Faradaic efficiencies and NH3 yields. Theoretical calculations show that Cu doping facilitates the reaction thermodynamically. These results highlight the feasibility of improving NO3RR activity using heteroatom doping strategies.
Article
Chemistry, Physical
Jun Wu, Asad Mehmood, Guohui Zhang, Shuang Wu, Ghulam Ali, Anthony Kucernak
Summary: The study presents the synthesis of cobalt nanoparticles supported on nitrogen-doped carbon with high selectivity and activity for reducing oxygen into hydrogen peroxide in alkaline electrolyte, as well as low activity towards hydrogen peroxide disproportionation reaction.
Article
Chemistry, Physical
Soumitra Dinda, Anjila I. Siddiqui, Snehanjali Behera, Biswajit Mondal
Summary: The role of covalent attachment of benzoquinone/hydroquinone as electron-proton transfer mediators in ORR has been investigated. It is found that this catalysis is more efficient in terms of selectivity towards H2O formation compared to using only Co(Sal) or Co(Sal) and quinone separately. While Co(Sal) has a 3% Faradaic yield for H2O formation, the Faradaic yield reaches 80% when using Co(Sal-H(2)Q).
Article
Chemistry, Multidisciplinary
Shenzhou Li, Zhiqiang Li, Tianping Huang, Huan Xie, Zhengpei Miao, Jiashun Liang, Ran Pan, Tanyuan Wang, Jiantao Han, Qing Li
Summary: In this work, silicon-doped iron-nitrogen-carbon catalysts were developed using in situ silicon doping and metal-polymer coordination. The results showed that silicon doping not only increased the density of Fe-N-x/C active sites, but also elevated the content of graphitic carbon, leading to a Si/Fe-N-C catalyst with improved activity and stability in acidic media.
Article
Chemistry, Physical
Yaoxia Yang, Fengyao Guo, Lan Zhang, Dangxia Wang, Xingwei Guo, Xiaozhong Zhou, Dongfei Sun, Zhiwang Yang, Ziqiang Lei
Summary: This study proposes a method to synthesize Fe-doped CoNiSe2 nanosheets as OER electrocatalysts, and finds that the introduction of iron ions can promote the redistribution of cobalt-nickel charge density, thus enhancing the kinetics of oxygen evolution reaction. The material exhibits excellent activity, electrocatalytic properties, and stability in alkaline media.
JOURNAL OF COLLOID AND INTERFACE SCIENCE
(2022)
Article
Chemistry, Physical
Ali Saad, Dongqing Liu, Yuchen Wu, Zhaoqi Song, Ying Li, Tayyaba Najam, Kai Zong, Panagiotis Tsiakaras, Xingke Cai
Summary: The study introduces borophene decorated with Ag nanoparticles (Ag@B) as a support for Co3O4 catalysts, significantly enhancing the oxygen-evolution-reaction (OER) performance. The improved OER activity of Co3O4-Ag@B is attributed to the increased catalytic sites on Co3O4 facilitated by conductive Ag nanoparticles and the reduced energy barrier for OER rate-determining step due to strong interaction of B atoms with Co and O atoms on Co3O4 nanoplates.
APPLIED CATALYSIS B-ENVIRONMENTAL
(2021)
Article
Chemistry, Physical
Min Soo Kim, Raju Thota, Muhammad A. Abbas, Jin Ho Bang
Summary: Nanostructuring is crucial for synthesizing highly active electrocatalysts, but faces challenges in scalability and complexity. A thermal route utilizing hot H2S gas is demonstrated to transform poor oxide electrocatalysts into highly active ones, showing simplicity and scalability after only 10 minutes of treatment.
APPLIED CATALYSIS B-ENVIRONMENTAL
(2021)
Article
Chemistry, Physical
Mphoma S. Matseke, Haitao Zheng, Mkhulu K. Mathe, Emanuela Carleschi, Bryan Doyle
Summary: In this study, Co-doped MnFe2O4 electrocatalysts were found to have improved oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) performance, with MnFe1.5Co0.5O4/C electrocatalyst showing the best results. The Co doping resulted in smaller and more uniform particle sizes, more oxygen vacancies, enriched surface Mn3+ ions, and improved conductivity, all contributing to enhanced ORR activity compared to pristine MnFe2O4/C.
JOURNAL OF ALLOYS AND COMPOUNDS
(2021)
Article
Energy & Fuels
Bo Tang, Hefei Fan, Qianfeng Liu, Qiang Zhang, Min Liu, Erdong Wang
Summary: This study reports a stable Sn@Cu foam prepared by plating tin on copper foam as a substrate for zinc anodes. The Sn@Cu foam not only inherits the advantages of the copper foam but also suppresses hydrogen evolution reaction and lowers the initial heterogeneous nucleation barrier of deposited zinc. In situ observation confirms the suppression of zinc dendrite growth on the Sn layer. As a result, a compact zinc layer on Sn@Cu foam is obtained, which exhibits a longer cycling life and better cycling stability.
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ENERGY RESEARCH
(2022)
Article
Chemistry, Multidisciplinary
Qianfeng Liu, Zhao Yan, Jianxin Gao, Erdong Wang
Summary: The composition of alloy-based electrocatalysts plays a key role in optimizing their electroactivity for the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) and oxygen evolution reaction (OER). This study investigates the electrocatalytic properties of FeCoNi-based alloys with varying compositions. The results show that alloys with low iron content exhibit higher HER activity, while alloys with low cobalt content exhibit higher OER activity. The addition of iron and cobalt increases the electrochemical specific area, leading to improved HER activity and stability. Surface hydroxides enhance the HER activity of most compositions, but have little effect on OER activity.
ACS SUSTAINABLE CHEMISTRY & ENGINEERING
(2022)
Article
Electrochemistry
Xiaoke Zhang, Qianfeng Liu, Shimin Liu, Erdong Wang
Summary: A series of Mn-doped Co3O4 nanoparticles grown on carbon nanotubes (Mn-Co3O4@CNTs) bifunctional electrocatalysts are designed for rechargeable Zn-air batteries, aiming for high-performance and low-cost catalysts. The Mn-Co3O4 with moderate doping of Mn atoms exhibits enhanced ORR activity due to the synergistic effect between Co and Mn atoms, and more Co3+ active sites are exposed on the surface to enhance the OER rate. The Mn-Co3O4@CNTs catalyst with 40% Mn doping shows higher ORR and OER performance, and when applied in rechargeable ZAB, it demonstrates excellent power density, low charge-discharge voltage gap, and superior cycling stability compared to Pt-and Ru-based ZABs.
ELECTROCHIMICA ACTA
(2023)
Article
Chemistry, Multidisciplinary
Ziheng Jing, Zhao Yan, Xueliang Wang, Ruxin Che, Erdong Wang
Summary: Zinc/air batteries have attracted extensive attention due to their low cost, high safety, and high energy density. This paper focuses on the water exchange issue in zinc/air batteries and prepares a high relative-humidity water-vapor-resistant membrane to reduce water exchange and improve battery performance.
Article
Engineering, Environmental
Jianxin Gao, Xiaotong Li, Qianfeng Liu, Hefei Fan, Shanshan Gao, Yujiang Song, Erdong Wang
Summary: Aqueous magnesium air batteries have the advantages of high theoretical energy density, inherent safety, and low cost. However, the practical energy density is limited by the hydrogen evolution corrosion of the magnesium (Mg) anode in conventional sodium chloride (NaCl) electrolyte. In this study, the hydrogen evolution reaction on the Mg anode surface is suppressed by using sodium acetate (NaAc) electrolyte, resulting in uniform anodic dissolution behavior of Mg without localized corrosion. The addition of acetate ions (Ac-) effectively prevents the breakdown of the passive film on the Mg anode, suppressing the anodic hydrogen evolution during discharge. This approach significantly improves the utilization efficiency of the Mg anode and boosts the specific energy of the Mg air battery. The practicality of NaAc electrolyte is confirmed in a commercial Mg air battery, providing a simple and scalable solution for high-performance Mg air batteries.
CHEMICAL ENGINEERING JOURNAL
(2023)
Article
Chemistry, Physical
Tengteng He, Qianfeng Liu, Hefei Fan, Yang Yang, Hongtao Wang, Shengzhong Zhang, Ruxin Che, Erdong Wang
Summary: Studying the changes in electrode activity and stability caused by increasing ion concentration in alkaline seawater electrolysis is essential for industrial-level seawater electrolysis. This study investigates the concentration of hydroxide ion (OH-), chlorine ion (Cl-), and other ions in alkaline seawater (OIAS) to understand the activity and stability of nickel foam (NF) electrodes in hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) and oxygen evolution reaction (OER). Overall, the activity of HER electrode decreases with increasing OH- concentration, while the OER electrode is enhanced by increasing OH- and Cl- concentration. However, increasing ion concentrations (OH-, Cl-, and OIAS) decrease the stability of HER electrode, while Cl- reduces the stability and OH- and OIAS enhance the stability of OER electrode. Additionally, the chloride evolution reaction (ClER) in 6 M NaOH with seawater can be ignored despite reaching saturation of salt concentration in alkaline seawater.
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF HYDROGEN ENERGY
(2023)
Article
Chemistry, Physical
Xiaotong Li, Shanshan Gao, Qianfeng Liu, Jianxin Gao, Zhao Yan, Min Liu, Shimin Liu, Erdong Wang
Summary: The effects of solute cerium (Ce) on the electrochemical performance of magnesium (Mg) alloy anodes were investigated. The addition of 0.174 wt.% Ce enhanced the corrosion resistance of Mg in seawater by forming a compact corrosion products layer and reducing the grain size of Mg alloys. Mg-Ce alloys were used in Mg-seawater batteries, achieving a high energy density and anode efficiency compared to pure Mg.
Article
Engineering, Environmental
Min Liu, Qiang Zhang, Xiaoke Zhang, Hefei Fan, Jianxian Gao, Ziheng Jing, Meng Wang, Zhenbo Wang, Erdong Wang
Summary: Rechargeable Magnesium-Air batteries (RMABs) are gaining attention for their high theoretical energy density, safety, and low cost. However, low energy efficiency and short lifespan hinder their development. This is mainly due to the lack of a suitable electrolyte to balance the needs of the cathode and anode.
CHEMICAL ENGINEERING JOURNAL
(2023)
Article
Chemistry, Physical
Hefei Fan, Haoxiang Zhang, Qianfeng Liu, Min Li, Lu Liu, Jianxin Gao, Qiang Zhang, Erdong Wang
Summary: This study proposes a biphasic electrolyte based on the salting out effect to comprehensively enhance the electrochemical performance of aqueous Zn metal batteries. On the Zn anode side, the organic-rich phase electrolyte reduces water content and manipulates the solvation structure of Zn2+, resulting in a uniform ZnOHF solid-electrolyte interphase (SEI). On the cathode side, the aqueous phase electrolyte maintains fast ionic conductivity and modifies the electrode/electrolyte interface property due to residual organic molecules, accelerating the redox kinetics.
ACS ENERGY LETTERS
(2023)
Article
Energy & Fuels
Xiaoke Zhang, Qianfeng Liu, Zhao Yan, Shimin Liu, Erdong Wang
Summary: In this study, CuO/Co3O4@CNTs catalysts were successfully prepared for bifunctional oxygen electrocatalysts using a facile and scalable coprecipitation strategy. This unique strategy allowed the uniform growth of CuO/Co3O4 nanoparticles on CNTs and the simultaneous pyrolysis process resulted in the generation of ultrafine CuO/Co3O4 heterostructures. Due to an abundance of heterostructures, oxygen vacancies and unsaturated chemical bonds were generated in CuO/Co3O4. As a result, CuO/Co3O4@CNTs exhibited bifunctional activity with a Delta E of 0.78 V and good stability, maintaining 1000 hours of charge and discharge cycles.
JOURNAL OF ENERGY STORAGE
(2023)
Article
Chemistry, Physical
Min Liu, Qiang Zhang, Xueliang Wang, Jianxin Gao, Qianfeng Liu, Erdong Wang, Zhenbo Wang
Summary: Acetic acid-sodium alginate (SA)/NaCl solid anolyte biphasic electrolytes were designed to expand the voltage window and alleviate anode corrosion in the magnesium-air (Mg-air) battery. The prepared SA/NaCl solid electrolyte has a high ionic conductivity and the anode utilization efficiency significantly increased from 9.6% to 61.5%. The assembled Mg-air battery achieved a high open circuit potential (OCP) of 2.59 V, an average discharge voltage of 2.01 V, and a high anode energy density of 2984.5 W h kg(-1) at 0.5 mA cm(-2).
SUSTAINABLE ENERGY & FUELS
(2023)
