Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Hierarchical coral-like NiMoS nanohybrids as highly efficient bifunctional electrocatalysts for overall urea electrolysis

  • Research Article
  • Published:
Nano Research Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Novel hierarchical coral-like Ni-Mo sulfides on Ti mesh (denoted as HC-NiMoS/Ti) were synthesized through facile hydrothermal and subsequent sulfuration processes without any template. These non-precious HC-NiMoS/Ti hybrids were explored as bifunctional catalysts for urea-based overall water splitting, including the anodic urea oxygen evolution reaction (UOR) and cathodic hydrogen evolution reaction (HER). Due to the highly exposed active sites, excellent charge transfer ability, and good synergistic effects from multi-component reactions, the HC-NiMoS/Ti hybrid exhibited superior activity and high stability, and only a cell voltage of 1.59 V was required to deliver 10 mA·cm–2 current density in an electrolyte of 1.0 M KOH with 0.5 M urea.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Xiao, C. L.; Li, Y. B.; Lu, X. Y.; Zhao, C. Bifunctional porous NiFe/NiCo2O4/Ni foam electrodes with triple hierarchy and double synergies for efficient whole cell water splitting. Adv. Funct. Mater. 2016, 26, 3515–3523.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. Zhou, H. Q.; Yu, F.; Sun, J. Y.; He, R.; Wang, Y. M.; Guo, C. F.; Wang, F.; Lan, Y. C.; Ren, Z. F.; Chen, S. Highly active and durable self-standing WS2/graphene hybrid catalysts for the hydrogen evolution reaction. J. Mater. Chem. A 2016, 4, 9472–9476.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. Yu, L.; Xia, B. Y.; Wang, X.; Lou, X. W. General formation of M-MoS3 (M = Co, Ni) hollow structures with enhanced electrocatalytic activity for hydrogen evolution. Adv. Mater. 2016, 28, 92–97.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Sivanantham, A.; Ganesan, P.; Shanmugam, S. Hierarchical NiCo2S4 nanowire arrays supported on Ni foam: An efficient and durable bifunctional electrocatalyst for oxygen and hydrogen evolution reactions. Adv. Funct. Mater. 2016, 26, 4661–4672.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Zhu, X. J.; Dou, X. Y.; Dai, J.; An, X. D.; Guo, Y. Q.; Zhang, L. D.; Tao, S.; Zhao, J. Y.; Chu, W. S.; Zeng, X. C. et al. Metallic nickel hydroxide nanosheets give superior electrocatalytic oxidation of urea for fuel cells. Angew. Chem., Int. Ed. 2016, 55, 12465–12469.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Wu, M. S.; Ji, R. Y.; Zheng, Y. R. Nickel hydroxide electrode with a monolayer of nanocup arrays as an effective electrocatalyst for enhanced electrolysis of urea. Electrochim. Acta 2014, 144, 194–199.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Wang, L.; Li, M. T.; Huang, Z. Y.; Li, Y. M.; Qi, S. T.; Yi, C. H.; Yang, B. L. Ni-WC/C nanocluster catalysts for urea electrooxidation. J. Power Sources 2014, 264, 282–289.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. Lee, Y.; Suntivich, J.; May, K. J.; Perry, E. E.; Shao-Horn, Y. Synthesis and activities of rutile IrO2 and RuO2 nanoparticles for oxygen evolution in acid and alkaline solutions. J. Phys. Chem. Lett. 2012, 3, 399–404.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. Tang, C.; Cheng, N. Y.; Pu, Z. H.; Xing, W.; Sun, X. P. NiSe nanowire film supported on nickel foam: An efficient and stable 3D bifunctional electrode for full water splitting. Angew. Chem., Int. Ed. 2015, 54, 9351–9355.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  10. Ma, T. Y.; Dai, S.; Jaroniec, M.; Qiao, S. Z. Metal–organic framework derived hybrid Co3O4-carbon porous nanowire arrays as reversible oxygen evolution electrodes. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2014, 136, 13925–13931.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  11. Long, X.; Li, J. K.; Xiao, S.; Yan, K. Y.; Wang, Z. L.; Chen, H. N.; Yang, S. H. A strongly coupled graphene and FeNi double hydroxide hybrid as an excellent electrocatalyst for the oxygen evolution reaction. Angew. Chem., Int. Ed. 2014, 126, 7714–7718.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  12. Wang, J. M.; Yang, W. R.; Liu, J. Q. CoP2 nanoparticles on reduced graphene oxide sheets as a super-efficient bifunctional electrocatalyst for full water splitting. J. Mater. Chem. A 2016, 4, 4686–4690.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  13. Geng, X. M.; Sun, W. W.; Wu, W.; Chen, B.; Al-Hilo, A.; Benamara, M.; Zhu, H. L.; Watanabe, F.; Cui, J. B.; Chen, T.-P. Pure and stable metallic phase molybdenum disulfide nanosheets for hydrogen evolution reaction. Nat. Commun. 2016, 7, 10672.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  14. Yang, N.; Tang, C.; Wang, K. Y.; Du, G.; Asiri, A. M.; Sun, X. P. Iron-doped nickel disulfide nanoarray: A highly efficient and stable electrocatalyst for water splitting. Nano Res. 2016, 9, 3346–3354.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  15. Zhou, W. J.; Zhou, Y. C.; Yang, L. J.; Huang, J. L.; Ke, Y. T.; Zhou, K.; Li, L. G.; Chen, S. W. N-doped carbon-coated cobalt nanorod arrays supported on a titanium mesh as highly active electrocatalysts for the hydrogen evolution reaction. J. Mater. Chem. A 2015, 3, 1915–1919.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  16. Liao, L.; Wang, S. N.; Xiao, J. J.; Bian, X. J.; Zhang, Y. H.; Scanlon, M. D.; Hu, X. L.; Tang, Y.; Liu, B. H.; Girault, H. H. A nanoporous molybdenum carbide nanowire as an electrocatalyst for hydrogen evolution reaction. Energy Environ. Sci. 2014, 7, 387–392.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  17. Li, J. Y.; Xia, Z. M.; Zhou, X. M.; Qin, Y. B.; Ma, Y. Y.; Qu, Y. Q. Quaternary pyrite-structured nickel/cobalt phosphosulfide nanowires on carbon cloth as efficient and robust electrodes for water electrolysis. Nano Res. 2017, 10, 814–825.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  18. Peng, S. J.; Li, L. L.; Han, X. P.; Sun, W. P.; Srinivasan, M.; Mhaisalkar, S. G.; Cheng, F. Y.; Yan, Q. Y.; Chen, J.; Ramakrishna, S. Cobalt sulfide nanosheet/graphene/carbon nanotube nanocomposites as flexible electrodes for hydrogen evolution. Angew. Chem., Int. Ed. 2014, 126, 12802–12807.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  19. Yu, J.; Li, Q. Q.; Chen, N.; Xu, C.-Y.; Zhen, L.; Wu, J. S.; Dravid, V. P. Carbon-coated nickel phosphide nanosheets as efficient dual-electrocatalyst for overall water splitting. ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces 2016, 8, 27850–27858.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  20. Zhang, G.; Wang, G. C.; Liu, Y.; Liu, H. J.; Qu, J. H.; Li, J. H. Highly active and stable catalysts of phytic acid-derivative transition metal phosphides for full water splitting. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2016, 138, 14686–14693.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  21. Zhang, X.; Liu, S. W.; Zang, Y. P.; Liu, R. R.; Liu, G. Q.; Wang, G. Z.; Zhang, Y. X.; Zhang, H. M.; Zhao, H. J. Co/Co9S8@S, N-doped porous graphene sheets derived from S, N dual organic ligands assembled Co-MOFs as superior electrocatalysts for full water splitting in alkaline media. Nano Energy 2016, 30, 93–102.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  22. Tian, J. Q.; Cheng, N. Y.; Liu, Q.; Sun, X. P.; He, Y. Q.; Asiri, A. M. Self-supported NiMo hollow nanorod array: An efficient 3D bifunctional catalytic electrode for overall water splitting. J. Mater. Chem. A 2015, 3, 20056–20059.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  23. Chen, W.-F.; Sasaki, K.; Ma, C.; Frenkel, A. I.; Marinkovic, N.; Muckerman, J. T.; Zhu, Y. M.; Adzic, R. R. Hydrogenevolution catalysts based on non-noble metal nickelmolybdenum nitride nanosheets. Angew. Chem., Int. Ed. 2012, 51, 6131–6135.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  24. Guo, J. X.; Zhu, H. F.; Sun, Y. F.; Tang, L.; Zhang, X. Boosting the lithium storage performance of MoS2 with graphene quantum dots. J. Mater. Chem. A 2016, 4, 4783–4789.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  25. Ding, J. B.; Zhou, Y.; Li, Y. G.; Guo, S. J.; Huang, X. Q. MoS2 nanosheet assembling superstructure with a threedimensional ion accessible site: A new class of bifunctional materials for batteries and electrocatalysis. Chem. Mater. 2016, 28, 2074–2080.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  26. Cao, Z. K.; Duan, A. J.; Zhao, Z.; Li, J. M.; Wei, Y. C.; Jiang, G. Y.; Liu, J. A simple two-step method to synthesize the well-ordered mesoporous composite Ti-FDU-12 and its application in the hydrodesulfurization of DBT and 4,6-DMDBT. J. Mater. Chem. A 2014, 2, 19738–19749.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  27. Zhao, C. Y.; Wang, X.; Kong, J. H.; Ang, J. M.; Lee, P. S.; Liu, Z. L.; Lu, X. H. Self-assembly-induced alternately stacked single-layer MoS2 and N-doped graphene: A novel van der Waals heterostructure for lithium-ion batteries. ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces 2016, 8, 2372–2379.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  28. Louie, M. W.; Bell, A. T. An investigation of thin-film Ni-Fe oxide catalysts for the electrochemical evolution of oxygen. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2013, 135, 12329–12337.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  29. King, R. L.; Botte, G. G. Investigation of multi-metal catalysts for stable hydrogen production via urea electrolysis. J. Power Sources 2011, 196, 9579–9584.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  30. Yan, W.; Wang, D.; Botte, G. G. Nickel and cobalt bimetallic hydroxide catalysts for urea electro-oxidation. Electrochim. Acta 2012, 61, 25–30.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  31. Yan, W.; Wang, D.; Diaz, L. A.; Botte, G. G. Nickel nanowires as effective catalysts for urea electro-oxidation. Electrochim. Acta 2014, 134, 266–271.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  32. Guo, B. J.; Yu, K.; Li, H. L.; Song, H. L.; Zhang, Y. Y.; Lei, X.; Fu, H.; Tan, Y. H.; Zhu, Z. Q. Hollow structured micro/nano MoS2 spheres for high electrocatalytic activity hydrogen evolution reaction. ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces 2016, 8, 5517–5525.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  33. Liang, Y. H.; Liu, Q.; Asiri, A. M.; Sun, X. P. Enhanced electrooxidation of urea using NiMoO4·xH2O nanosheet arrays on Ni foam as anode. Electrochim. Acta 2015, 153, 456–460.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  34. Mei, L.; Yang, T.; Xu, C.; Zhang, M.; Chen, L. B.; Li, Q. H.; Wang, T. H. Hierarchical mushroom-like CoNi2S4 arrays as a novel electrode material for supercapacitors. Nano Energy 2014, 3, 36–45.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by Qingdao Innovation Leading Expert Program, Qingdao Basic & Applied Research project (No. 15-9-1-100-jch), and the Qingdao Postdoctoral Application Research Project (No. 40601060003).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Materials Science and Engineering, Institute for Graphene Applied Technology Innovation, Qingdao University, Qingdao, 266071, China

    Xiaoxia Wang, Shuang Wei, Liang Cui & Jingquan Liu

  2. College of Chemistry, Sichuan University, Chengdu, 610064, China

    Xuping Sun

  3. School of Life and Environmental Sciences, Deakin University, Geelong, 3217, VIC, Australia

    Jianmei Wang & Wenrong Yang

Authors
  1. Xiaoxia Wang
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Jianmei Wang
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Xuping Sun
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Shuang Wei
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. Liang Cui
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  6. Wenrong Yang
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  7. Jingquan Liu
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Xuping Sun or Jingquan Liu.

Electronic supplementary material

12274_2017_1711_MOESM1_ESM.pdf

Hierarchical coral-like NiMoS nanohybrids as highly efficient bifunctional electrocatalysts for overall urea electrolysis

Supplementary material, approximately 7.65 MB.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Wang, X., Wang, J., Sun, X. et al. Hierarchical coral-like NiMoS nanohybrids as highly efficient bifunctional electrocatalysts for overall urea electrolysis. Nano Res. 11, 988–996 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-017-1711-3

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Revised:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-017-1711-3

Keywords

Search

Navigation