Polyoxometalate-derived bi-functional crystalline/amorphous interfaces with optimized d-electron configuration for efficient self-powered hydrazine-seawater splitting

Abstract

Hydrazine-assisted water electrolysis is a promising energy-efficient strategy for hydrogen production. Nonetheless, developing high-performance bi-functional electrocatalysts towards both hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) and hydrazine oxidation reaction (HzOR) remains great challenges, especially for hydrazine-seawater splitting. Herein, we report a polyoxometalate-assisted in-situ synthesis protocol for constructing bi-functional crystalline/amorphous Pt/MoO3-x interfaces toward both efficient HER and HzOR. The polyoxometalate-derived crystalline/amorphous Pt/MoO3-x interfaces deliver working potentials of only –23 and −41 mV at 10 mA cm−2 for HER and HzOR in seawater electrolyte, respectively. Meanwhile, ultrahigh mass activities of 38.39 AmgPt-1 for HER at −100 mV potential and 23.84 AmgPt-1 for HzOR at 50 mV potential are also achieved, over 30.2 and 52.9 times higher than those of commercial Pt/C. As bi-functional electrocatalysts for overall hydrazine-seawater splitting, the electrolyzer requires a cell voltage of only 55/238 mV at 10/100 mA cm−2, 1.584/1.543 V lower than that of the seawater splitting system. Moreover, a proof-of-concept self-powered hydrazine-seawater electrolysis system driven by direct hydrazine fuel cell is further demonstrated, which achieves a hydrogen production rate of 0.29 mL cm−2min−1. DFT calculations verify that, the crystalline/amorphous interfaces endow Pt/MoO3-x an optimized d-electron configuration with favorable H* adsorption and promoted dehydrogenation kinetics of *N2H4 to *N2H3 in the potential-determining step. This work provides a novel strategy and inspiration toward the design of efficient bi-functional electrocatalysts for hydrazine-assisted hydrogen production from seawater.