Bifunctional Ultrathin RhRu0.5 -Alloy Nanowire Electrocatalysts for Hydrazine-Assisted Water Splitting

Xiaoyang Fu; Dongfang Cheng; Chengzhang Wan; Simran Kumari; Hongtu Zhang; Ao Zhang; Huaixun Huyan; Jingxuan Zhou; Huaying Ren; Sibo Wang; Zipeng Zhao; Xun Zhao; Jun Chen; Xiaoqing Pan; Philippe Sautet; Yu Huang; Xiangfeng Duan

doi:10.1002/adma.202301533

Bifunctional Ultrathin RhRu_0.5 -Alloy Nanowire Electrocatalysts for Hydrazine-Assisted Water Splitting

Adv Mater. 2023 Jun;35(23):e2301533. doi: 10.1002/adma.202301533. Epub 2023 Apr 25.

Authors

Xiaoyang Fu^{1

2}, Dongfang Cheng³, Chengzhang Wan^{1

2}, Simran Kumari³, Hongtu Zhang¹, Ao Zhang², Huaixun Huyan⁴, Jingxuan Zhou², Huaying Ren¹, Sibo Wang¹, Zipeng Zhao², Xun Zhao⁵, Jun Chen⁵, Xiaoqing Pan⁴, Philippe Sautet^{1

3}, Yu Huang², Xiangfeng Duan¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, USA.
² Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, USA.
³ Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, USA.
⁴ Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of California, Irvine, Irvine, CA, 92697, USA.
⁵ Department of Bioengineering, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, USA.

PMID: 36944373
DOI: 10.1002/adma.202301533

Abstract

Hydrazine-assisted water electrolysis offers a feasible path for low-voltage green hydrogen production. Herein, the design and synthesis of ultrathin RhRu_0.5 -alloy wavy nanowires as bifunctional electrocatalysts for both the anodic hydrazine oxidation reaction (HzOR) and the cathodic hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) is reported. It is shown that the RhRu_0.5 -alloy wavy nanowires can achieve complete electrooxidation of hydrazine with a low overpotential and high mass activity, as well as improved performance for the HER. The resulting RhRu_0.5 bifunctional electrocatalysts enable, high performance hydrazine-assisted water electrolysis delivering a current density of 100 mA cm^-2 at an ultralow cell voltage of 54 mV and a high current density of 853 mA cm^-2 at a cell voltage of 0.6 V. The RhRu_0.5 electrocatalysts further demonstrate a stable operation at a high current density of 100 mA cm^-2 for 80 hours of testing period with little irreversible degradation. The overall performance greatly exceeds that of the previously reported hydrazine-assisted water electrolyzers, offering a pathway for efficiently converting hazardous hydrazine into molecular hydrogen.

Keywords: electrocatalysis; hydrazine oxidation reaction; hydrazine-assisted water splitting; nanomaterials; noble metals.

Abstract

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