An amorphous nickel carbonate catalyst for superior urea oxidation reaction

Abstract

Compared with crystalline catalysts, the feature of more unsaturated coordinated atoms and higher surface energy boosts the electrocatalytic performance of amorphous catalysts. Herein, an amorphous nickel carbonate, a urea oxidation reaction (UOR) catalyst, was synthesized via a facile precipitation approach. The UOR catalysis on the as-synthesized amorphous nickel carbonate mainly follows the indirect chemical-oxidation path. When employed in UOR catalysis, the as-synthesized amorphous nickel carbonate decorated on glass carbon electrode delivers a current density of 117.69 mA·cm−2 at 1.6 V vs. RHE with a small Tafel slope of 40.7 mV·dec-1, which is comparable to the most active reported catalysts. This work proposes a facile method to synthesize an efficient amorphous nickel carbonate UOR catalyst.