Nickel–Cobalt Selenide Electrocatalytic Electrode toward Glucose Oxidation Coupling with Alkaline Hydrogen Production

Abstract

Electrochemical glucose oxidation reaction (GOR) is a promising alternative anodic reaction to water oxidation reaction for various electrochemical oxidation reactions owing to the relatively low thermodynamic potential of GOR and the abundant source of glucose from biomass-based platform molecules. However, it remains difficult to develop high-activity and low-cost electrocatalysts toward GOR. Herein, we report a NiCoSex nanoplate supported on Ni foam with excellent activity for GOR electrocatalysis, which achieves a high current density of 500 mA cm-2 at 1.41 V vs reversible hydrogen electrode (RHE) and a 70.2% Faraday efficiency of formate at 1.40 V vs RHE. The surface component evolution of NiCoSex is studied by an in situ Raman spectrum, which points out the catalytic active species to be CoOx/CoOOH and NiOOH. Furthermore, we develop a two-electrode cell by pairing GOR with hydrogen evolution reaction using the NiCoSex electrode as the bifunctional catalyst for the anode and the cathode, which only requires an applied voltage of 1.50 V to reach a high current density of 200 mA cm-2 and retains long-term stability over 18 h with a high Faraday efficiency of H2 (close to 100%) in the cathode.