Abstract
Urea oxidation reaction (UOR) can be used as an alternative to oxygen evolution reaction (OER) for hydrogen production by electrolysis of water, and as an anode reaction for direct urea fuel cells (DUFC). However, the slow kinetics of UOR restricts its wide application. Therefore, it is of great significance to design and prepare cheap and high-performance non-noble metal based UOR catalysts. In this work, Ni/NiO–NiWO4-2 sample prepared by solvent evaporation method has a mesoporous feature verified by the structural characterization, which is conducive to electrolyte diffusion and electron transport. Electrochemical tests show that the Ni/NiO–NiWO4-2 sample has good UOR catalytic activity, namely, the potential required by UOR is 1.669 V (vs RHE) at the current density of 270.44 mA cm−2. The excellent performance of Ni/NiO–NiWO4-2 is ascribed to that its mesoporous structure facilitates the diffusion of the electrolyte and exposes more active areas, the existence of metal W weakens the poisoning of Ni3+ active components and reduces the energy barrier of UOR confirmed by density functional theory, thus enhancing the performance of UOR.
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