Small‐molecule electrooxidation‐boosted water electrolysis (WE) is an energy‐saving method for hydrogen (H2) production. Herein, PdPt bimetallenes (PdPt BMLs) are obtained through the simple galvanic replacement reaction. PdPt BMLs reveal 2.93‐fold enhancement in intrinsic electroactivity and 4.53‐fold enhancement in mass electroactivity for the formate oxidation reaction (FOR) with respect to Pd metallenes (Pd MLs) at 0.50 V potential due to the synergistic effect. Meanwhile, the introduction of Pt atoms also considerably increases the electroactivity of PdPt BMLs for hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) with respect to Pd MLs in an alkaline medium, which even exceeds that with the use of commercial Pt nanocrystals. Inspired by the outstanding FOR and HER electroactivity of bifunctional PdPt BMLs, a two‐electrode FOR‐boosted WE system (FOR‐WE) is constructed by using PdPt BMLs as the cathode and the anode. The FOR‐WE system only requires an operational voltage of 0.31 V to achieve H2 production, which is 1.48 V lower than that (ca. 1.79 V) with the use of the traditional WE system.
In order to alleviate the inferior cycle stability of the sulfur cathode, a self-assembled SnO 2 -doped manganese silicate nanobubble (SMN) is designed as a sulfur/polysulfide host to immobilize the intermediate Li 2 S x , and nitrogen-doped carbon (N-C) is coated on SMN (SMN@C). The exquisite N-C conductive network not only provides sufficient free space for the volume expansion during the phase transition of solid sulfur into lithium sulfide but also reduces R ct of SMN. During cycling, the soluble polysulfide could be fastened by the silicate with an oxygen-rich functional group and heteronitrogen atoms through chemical bonding, enabling a confined shuttle effect. The synergistic effect between N-C and SMN could also effectively facilitate the interconversion between lithium polysulfides and Li 2 S, reducing the potential barrier and accelerating the redox kinetics. With an areal sulfur loading of 2 mg/cm 2 , the S-SMN@C cathodes demonstrate a high initial capacity of 1204 mA•h/g at 0.1 C, and an outstanding cycle stability with a capacity fading rate of 0.0277%, ranging from the 2nd cycle to the 1000th cycle at 2 C.
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