Construction and Application of Interfacial Inorganic Nanostructures

Abstract

Interfacial nanostructured materials have stimulated extensive interests in the research areas of green energy production and conversion due to their unique structures and performance. These interfacial crystalline structures with rich intrinsic defects, such as oxygen vacancies, adatoms, grain boundaries, and substitutional impurities, have led to unique activities in a variety of catalytic reactions. The rational design and engineering development of the interfaces provide an attractive way to optimize the catalytic performance and finally improve the efficiency of energy conversion and storage. Herein, a comprehensive overview of interfacial inorganic nanostructures and their electrocatalytic applications are summarized, and some future challenge and opportunity have also been proposed.

Uncovering the Promotion of CeO2/CoS1.97 Heterostructure with Specific Spatial Architectures on Oxygen Evolution Reaction

“…Briefly speaking, developing new cobalt sulfide materials for OER is full of challenges and chances. [12] Ceria (CeO 2 ) presents unique physicochemical properties such as excellent oxygen ion conductivity and oxygen storage capacity, which derive from the reversible variation between Ce 3+ and Ce 4+ , making a good candidate in both electrocatalysis and thermal catalysis as co-catalysts or support materials to improve activity and stability. [13] Recently, doping Ce atoms into and alleviates the leak of active components, bringing robust HER activity for more than 250 h. [14] Feng et al [15] developed novel FeOOH/CeO 2 heterolayer nanotubes with CeO 2 layer coated grown on Ni foam.…”

Tuning the Electronic Structure of Tungsten Oxide for Enhanced Hydrogen Evolution Reaction in Alkaline Electrolyte

“…Both phases were critical for the alkaline HER-(1) reduced oxide or alloy improved the catalyst conductivity, (2) the metal-metal oxide interface was considered as the active site for H 2 O adsorption and dissociation under alkaline conditions. [50][51][52] However, the catalytic performances of WO, CoÀ WO, and FeÀ WO were significantly different, even though all three samples had a metal-metal oxide heterostructure. This may be ascribed to the different electronic structures in the samples induced by ion doping.…”

“…The diminished HER activity in the catalyst could be attributed to the absence of metal oxides or metals, as inferred from the XRD results. Both phases were critical for the alkaline HER‐(1) reduced oxide or alloy improved the catalyst conductivity, (2) the metal‐metal oxide interface was considered as the active site for H 2 O adsorption and dissociation under alkaline conditions [50–52] …”

Activation Strategies of Perovskite‐Type Structure for Applications in Oxygen‐Related Electrocatalysts

“…Until recently, the perovskite‐type structure electrocatalysts have received more and more attention worldwide and made some achievements. [ 26–37,41–43 ] In this review, we summarize the mainstream activation strategies of perovskite‐type structure to catalyze various oxygen‐related reactions, including water splitting, metal–air batteries, and solid oxide fuel cells. More importantly, we concentrate on several typical studies of key factors for determining the activity of perovskite‐type catalysts for different activation strategies including the number of exposed active sites, electronic structure, defects and vacancies, type of oxygen and BO bonds, and electrical conductivity ( Figure ).…”