Electrochemical hydrogen production
is considered the most reliable
approach to transfer the renewable energies to the chemical energynamely,
the hydrogenfor storage, and intensive attention has been
directed to the nonprecious catalyst development for water splitting
reactions. Among the catalyst candidates, metal sulfides have been
extensively explored as an emerging electrocatalyst material for oxygen
evolution reaction (OER) in water splitting reaction, because of their
abundant active centers, good electrical conductivity, and high intrinsic
activity. By optimizing the structure and chemical states, some advanced
catalysts have been reported recently, which was instructive and inspiring
for novel catalyst development. Herein, the recent advances in electrocatalytic
performance and optimization strategies of transition-metal sulfide
for OER are reviewed systematically and comprehensively. The fundamental
catalytic mechanism and key parameters of OER are first presented
and then followed by the physicochemical properties of metal sulfides,
which could be helpful in understanding the correlation between the
structure and catalytic performance. Importantly, the intrinsic activity
of metal sulfides boosted by the general strategies, in terms of the
defect/vacancy effect, lattice mismatch, phase engineering, heterostructure,
and the doping effect, is mainly discussed in this work. The challenges
and opportunities related to the further development of metal sulfide
materials with high activity and long-term durability are finally
proposed. It can be concluded that these regulatory strategies could
largely improve the electrocatalytic performance by increasing the
active site exposure and reducing the energy barrier of catalytic
reactions. In addition, the problems and future challenges in improving
the catalytic performance of metal sulfide materials are presented,
which provides beneficial enlightenment and guidance for the development
of efficient and low-cost electrocatalysts in the future. Hopefully,
this effort would be helpful to the design and preparation of metal
sulfides catalyst for OER.
The
microenvironment tuning of Ni species, a promising
non-precious
catalyst, is significant in the energy and environmentally relevant
urea electro-oxidation reaction (UOR). Herein, we found that the high-valent
Ni species induced by the inactive MoO2 in mixed nanocrystals
of NiO/MoO2 were effective for urea oxidation. The redox
interaction of MoO2 and NiO revealed by the spectroscopic
analysis well supported the formation of high-valent Ni species and
the changes in the surface chemical state. High catalytic activity
and stability for urea oxidation were observed by a series of electrochemical
measures compared to the counterpart catalysts of MoO2 and
NiO. The optimal NiO/MoO2 hybrid catalyst showed a UOR
activity of 73.1 mA cm–2 at 1.50 V, which was about
12-fold that of the NiO catalyst. In addition, largely improved catalytic
kinetics and catalytic stability for UOR were also demonstrated. Because
of the inactive activity of MoO2 and the low performance
of NiO, the largely improved preference can be affirmatively attributed
to the efficient catalytic synergism of NiO/MoO2 in the
mixed nanocrystals. The current finding clarifies the catalytic promotion
effect of the inactive Mo species on Ni-based catalysts for urea oxidation,
which would be instructive for Ni/Mo-relevant catalyst development.
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