Abstract
Nickel nanoparticles supported by commercial carbon paper (CP) are prepared by pulsed laser deposition with deposition time of 3, 6, and 12 min as a catalyst for urea electro-oxidation. The surface conditions and the morphologies of the prepared electrodes have been characterized by Raman spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy, and transmission electron microscopy. Urea electro-oxidation reaction in KOH solution on the Ni/CP electrodes is investigated by cyclic voltammetry and chronoamperometry. The results show that the electrode with less Ni nanoparticle agglomeration shows higher peak current density, which was achieved in the 3 min deposition samples when normalized by electroactive surface areas. However, the highest current normalized by the area of the carbon paper was achieved in the 6 min deposition sample due to the larger quantity of Ni nanoparticles. All the samples show good stability. Our results suggest that the low density, low cost, and environmental friendly CP can be used as support for Ni nanoparticle as a catalyst for urea electro-oxidation. It thus has great potential for many applications involving urea oxidation, such as wastewater treatments.
Highlights
The generation of clean energy and the wastewater treatment are two major challenges faced and pursued due to the heavy dependence on fossil fuels, non-renewable energy sources, which cause environmental impacts through the greenhouse gas emissions, and the constant contamination of rivers due to the absence of an adequate wastewater treatment [1].Urea is a substance found in domestic wastewater, as it is the main component of human and animal urine, containing about 2–2.5 wt% of urea [2, 3], and in industrial effluents, such as a large amount of urea-rich wastewater generated by the process of urea synthesis as agricultural fertilizer and animal feed additive [4, 5]
A relatively weak D band is clearly observed for the original carbon paper (CP) in Fig. 2, which indicates that the CP is constructed by graphite fibers with a small number of defects
The Ni nanoparticles have been prepared by Pulsed Laser Deposition (PLD) with 3, 6 and 12 min of deposition time in order to get different Ni loading quantity
Summary
The generation of clean energy and the wastewater treatment are two major challenges faced and pursued due to the heavy dependence on fossil fuels, non-renewable energy sources, which cause environmental impacts through the greenhouse gas emissions, and the constant contamination of rivers due to the absence of an adequate wastewater treatment [1]. Urea is a substance found in domestic wastewater, as it is the main component of human and animal urine, containing about 2–2.5 wt% of urea [2, 3], and in industrial effluents, such as a large amount of urea-rich wastewater generated by the process of urea synthesis as agricultural fertilizer and animal feed additive [4, 5] When these effluents are discharged into rivers without treatment, they can generate serious environmental contamination and human health problems because urea, despite being non-toxic, can naturally decompose into toxic ammonia and others nitrogenous pollutants [1, 6,7,8]. Urea is conventionally treated by nitrification and denitrification, which are sophisticated and high energy consuming
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