Recent advances in the pre-oxidation process in electrocatalytic urea oxidation reactions
The electrocatalytic urea oxidation reaction (UOR) has attracted substantial research interests over the past few years owing to its critical role in coupled electrochemical systems for energy conversion, for example, coupling with the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) to realize urea-assisted hydro...
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| Published in | Chemical communications (Cambridge, England) Vol. 58; no. 15; pp. 243 - 2442 |
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| Main Authors | , , , , , |
| Format | Journal Article |
| Language | English |
| Published |
England
Royal Society of Chemistry
17.02.2022
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| Subjects | |
| Online Access | Get full text |
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| Summary: | The electrocatalytic urea oxidation reaction (UOR) has attracted substantial research interests over the past few years owing to its critical role in coupled electrochemical systems for energy conversion, for example, coupling with the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) to realize urea-assisted hydrogen production and assembling direct urea fuel cells (DUFC) by coupling with the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR). The UOR process has been proved to be a two-step process which involves an electrochemical pre-oxidation reaction of the metal sites and a subsequent chemical oxidation of the urea molecules on the as-formed high-valence metal sites. Hence, designing advanced (pre-)catalysts with a boosted pre-oxidation reaction is of great importance in improving the UOR performance and thus accelerating the coupled reactions. In this feature article, we discuss the significant role of the pre-oxidation process during the urea electro-oxidation reaction, and summarize detailed strategies and recent advances in promoting the pre-oxidation reaction, including the modulation of the crystallinity, active phase engineering, defect engineering, elemental incorporation and constructing hierarchical nanostructures. We anticipate that this feature article will offer helpful guidance for the design and optimization of advanced (pre-)catalysts for UOR and related energy conversion applications.
In this feature article, we discuss the significant role of the pre-oxidation reaction during urea electro-oxidation, and summarize the detailed strategies and recent advances in promoting the pre-oxidation reaction. |
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| Bibliography: | Wen Gao currently studies at the College of Chemistry, Chemical Engineering and Materials Science of SDNU under the supervision of Prof. Junfeng Xie. Her research interests include the investigations of the pre-oxidation process in electro-oxidation reactions for energy-related applications. Junfeng Xie received his BS degree in Chemistry from Qufu Normal University in 2009. Then he joined Prof. Yi Xie's group at USTC and received his PhD degree in Inorganic Chemistry in 2014. Currently, he works at the College of Chemistry, Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, SDNU. His research interests include the function-oriented design and controllable fabrication of low-dimensional materials for electrochemical energy conversion and storage, especially focusing on the exploration of advanced electrocatalysts for energy-related applications. Fengcai Lei received her BS degree in Physics from SDNU in 2011 and PhD in Condensed Matter Physics at the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) in 2016 under the supervision of Prof. Yi Xie and Prof. Bicai Pan. Currently, she is an associate professor of SDNU. Her research interests include the theoretical computation and the underlying electronic structure during studying the atomically thin inorganic graphene analogues for energy conversion. Jiechen Li currently studies at the College of Chemistry, Chemical Engineering and Materials Science of SDNU under the supervision of Prof. Junfeng Xie. His research interest involves controllable fabrication of advanced catalysts for electrochemical energy conversion. Wenbin Sun is currently a Master's Degree candidate of Chemistry at the College of Chemistry, Chemical Engineering and Materials Science of Shandong Normal University (SDNU) under the supervision of Prof. Junfeng Xie. His research interests involve controllable synthesis and optimization of advanced catalysts for energy conversion. Luyao Kang currently studies at the College of Chemistry, Chemical Engineering and Materials Science of SDNU under the supervision of Prof. Junfeng Xie. Her research interests involve rational construction of active sites and the regulation of electronic structures of the energy-related electrocatalysts. ObjectType-Article-1 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-2 content type line 14 ObjectType-Review-3 content type line 23 |
| ISSN: | 1359-7345 1364-548X 1364-548X |
| DOI: | 10.1039/d1cc06290e |