Thermal-Driven Orderly Assembly of Ir-atomic Chains on α-MnO2 with Enhanced Performance for Acidic Oxygen Evolution.

The development of acid-stable oxygen evolution reaction electrocatalysts is essential for high-performance acidic water electrolysis. Herein, we report the results of one-dimensional (1D) nanorods (NRs) IrCeMnO@Ir containing ~20 wt . % Iridium (Ir) as an efficient anode electrocatalyst, synthesized via a one-step cation exchange strategy. Owing to the presence of 1D channels of the nanorod architecture and the unique electronic structure, the IrCeMnO@Ir exhibited 69 folds more mass activity than that of commercial IrO2 as well as over 400 h stability with only a 20 mV increase in overpotential. DFT calculations and control experiments demonstrated that CeO2 serves as an electron buffer to accelerate the kinetics of the rate-determined step for the significantly enhanced activity and suppress the over-oxidation of Ir species as well as their dissolution for impressively promoted stability under practical conditions. Our work opens up a feasible strategy to boost OER activity and stability simultaneously.

Structured Cerium-Manganese Catalysts Supported on Nickel Foam for Toluene Oxidation by Electric Internal Heating.

Structured catalysts are widely used in catalytic oxidation of gaseous pollutants, hot catalysis is usually needed to assist the reaction in the catalytic process. Herein, a Ce-modified manganese oxide octahedral molecular sieves (Ce-OMS-2) structured catalyst supported on foam nickel was prepared through impregnation process. A systematically quantitative testing on the toluene catalytic oxidation effectiveness of this structured catalyst was conducted through catalyst evaluation device, combining a series of characterization methods, such as XRD and SEM, the structure-activity relationship was established. Assisted with electric internal heating and ozone oxidation environments, this structured catalyst exhibits excellent catalytic oxidation performance for oxidative decomposition of toluene even under high humidity conditions. The results showed that the ozone-coupled structured nickel foam catalyst increased the decomposition efficiency of toluene from 25 % (without catalyst and heating) to 55 % (with catalyst and without heating) and the electric internal heating can significantly improve the reactivity and moisture resistance of the structured nickel-foam catalyst, at 90 % RH and 40000 h-1, 50000 ppb O3 and 40 mg/m3 toluene was maintained 100 % catalytic efficiency. The high-efficiency non-precious metal-based electrothermal catalyst prepared herein is expected to have certain enlightenment for the purification of VOCs.

Multilayered NiMo/CoMn/Ni Cathodic Electrodes with Enhanced Activity and Stability toward Alkaline Water Electrolysis.

In this study, multilayered NiMo/CoMn/Ni cathodic electrodes were prepared by the multilayered electrodeposition method. The multilayered structure includes a nickel screen substrate, CoMn nanoparticles at the bottom, and cauliflower-like NiMo nanoparticles at the top. The multilayered electrodes have a lower overpotential, preferable stability, and better electrocatalytic performance than monolayer electrodes. In a three-electrode system, the overpotentials of the multilayered NiMo/CoMn/Ni cathodic electrodes at 10 and 500 mA/cm2 are only 28.7 and 259.1 mV, respectively. The overpotential rise rate of the electrodes after constant current tests at 200 and 500 mA/cm2 was 4.42 and 8.74 mV/h, respectively, and the overpotential rise rate after 1000 cycles of cyclic voltammetry of the electrodes was 1.9 mV/h, while the overpotential rise rate after the three stability tests of the nickel screen was 5.49, 11.42, and 5.1 mV/h. According to the Tafel extrapolation polarization curve, the Ecorr and Icorr of the electrodes were -0.3267 V and 1.954 × 10-5 A/cm2, respectively. The charge transfer rate of the electrodes is slightly slower than that of the monolayer electrodes, indicating that its corrosion resistance is more excellent. An electrolytic cell was designed for the overall water-splitting test, and the current density of the electrodes was 121.6 mA/cm2 at 1.8 V. In addition, the stability of the electrodes is excellent after intermittent testing for 50 h, which can greatly reduce power consumption and is more suitable for industrial overall water-splitting tests. In addition, the three-dimensional model was used to simulate the three-electrode system and alkaline water electrolytic cell system, and the simulation results are consistent with the experimental results. The hydrogen adsorption free energy (ΔGH) of the electrodes was -1.0191 eV, which was evaluated by density functional theory (DFT). The ΔGH is closer to zero than that of the monolayer electrodes, indicating that the surface has stronger adsorption of hydrogen atoms.