Large scale uniform Ni-P plated carbon fiber for boosting urea electro-oxidation and electro-detection

Yan-Ru Fan; Jin-Qi Li; Yu-Xi Yang; Zhi-Hao Zhang; Jie Zhang; Jing-He Yang

doi:10.3389/fchem.2023.1298655

Large scale uniform Ni-P plated carbon fiber for boosting urea electro-oxidation and electro-detection

Front Chem. 2023 Oct 26:11:1298655. doi: 10.3389/fchem.2023.1298655. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Yan-Ru Fan¹, Jin-Qi Li², Yu-Xi Yang³, Zhi-Hao Zhang⁴, Jie Zhang³, Jing-He Yang²

Affiliations

¹ Clinical Lab Department, Henan Provincial People's Hospital, Zhengzhou, China.
² School of Chemistry Engineering, Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou, China.
³ School of Ecology and Environment, Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou, China.
⁴ Department of Infections Disease, The First Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou, China.

Abstract

Seeking an excellent electrocatalyst is the trickiest issue for the application of urea electro-oxidation and electro-detection. Phosphorus-doped nickel plating on carbon fibers (Ni-P/CF) is synthesized by simple electroless plating. SEM results exhibit that the Ni-P densely and uniformly grows onto the surface of carbon fibers (CF), forming carbon fibers-like nanoarchitectures. Benefiting from the carbon fibers-like nano architectures with abundant exposed active sites on the surface of CF, electron transfer can be synchronously facilitated, and Ni-P/CF displays superior urea electrooxidation (UOR) performance with potentials of 1.40 V to reach 100 mA cm^-2. Impressively, it can maintain at 20 mA cm^-2 for 48 h without evident activity attenuation, demonstrating robust durability. Cycle stability shows that the voltage has only increased by 10 mV at 300 mA cm^-2 from the 10th to 20000th cycles. Most importantly, Ni-P/CF at a length of 100 cm with good reproducibility was successfully synthesized, denoting great potential for large-scale industrial production. Therefore, this work not only affords cost-effective tactics for urea-rich wastewater degradation but also can achieve practical medical applications.

Keywords: carbon fibers; electrocatalyst; electroless plating; urea detection; urea oxidation.

Grants and funding

The author(s) declare financial support was received for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. This study is supported by Henan Province Medical Science and Technology Research Plan jointly established a project (LHGJ20200322), Henan Provincial Science and Technology Public Relation Project (222102310301).