Bifunctional Ultrathin RhRu0.5 -Alloy Nanowire Electrocatalysts for Hydrazine-Assisted Water Splitting.

Abstract

Hydrazine-assisted water electrolysis offers a feasible path for low-voltage green hydrogen production. Herein, the design and synthesis of ultrathin RhRu0.5 -alloy wavy nanowires as bifunctional electrocatalysts for both the anodic hydrazine oxidation reaction (HzOR) and the cathodic hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) is reported. It is shown that the RhRu0.5 -alloy wavy nanowires can achieve complete electrooxidation of hydrazine with a low overpotential and high mass activity, as well as improved performance for the HER. The resulting RhRu0.5 bifunctional electrocatalysts enable, high performance hydrazine-assisted water electrolysis delivering a current density of 100mAcm-2 at an ultralow cell voltage of 54 mV and a high current density of 853mAcm-2 at a cell voltage of 0.6V. The RhRu0.5 electrocatalysts further demonstrate a stable operation at a high current density of 100mAcm-2 for 80 hours of testing period with little irreversible degradation. The overall performance greatlyexceeds that of the previously reported hydrazine-assisted water electrolyzers, offering a pathway for efficiently converting hazardous hydrazine into molecular hydrogen.