Physicochemical and electrochemical investigations of an electrodeposited CeNi2@NiO nanomaterial as a novel anode electrocatalyst material for urea oxidation in alkaline media

Abstract

Energy and water treatment can be considered to be major challenges in socioeconomic growth. The urea fuel cell (UFC) is a system that uses urea-containing waste water to generate power; this system satisfies two aims: treating water that contains urea and providing electricity from waste water. In this work, an electrodeposited material, CeNi2@NiO, was introduced to enhance the anodic behavior of UFC. The as-fabricated CeNi2@NiO nanoparticles (NPs) were studied using field emission-scanning electron microscope (FE-SEM), Energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX) and X-ray diffraction (XRD) techniques. These analyses indicated that the presented NPs possessed CeNi2@NiO NPs that have a low CeNi2 content and have NiO as their primary form. Cyclic voltammetry (CV) and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) measurements were conducted in a 3-electrode system to investigate the performance of CeNi2@NiO for urea electrooxidation and/or as an anode material for UFC. The synthesized NPs showed an improved electrocatalytic behavior at high pH (KOH media) in different urea concentrations, up to 1.0 mol/l. The superior electroactivity can be attributed to the assembly of Ce with Ni during the electrodeposition step, which enhances roughness, charge transfer and structural defects of Ni sites.