Key Laboratory of Superlight Materials and Surface Technology of Ministry of Education, College of Materials Science and Chemical Engineering, Harbin Engineering University, Harbin, 150001, People's Republic of China.
State Key Laboratory of Catalysis, CAS Center for Excellence in Nanoscience, Dalian National Laboratory for Clean Energy, Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Dalian, 116023, People's Republic of China.
Top Curr Chem (Cham). 2018 Oct 26;376(6):42. doi: 10.1007/s41061-018-0219-y.
This paper provides an overview of recent advances in urea electro-oxidation. Urea sources are abundant from human urine, urea-containing wastewater, and industrial urea, thus becoming an attractive option as anodic fuel for the application in direct urea fuel cells (DUFCs). Besides, as a hydrogen-rich chemical fuel, urea can also be electrolyzed to produce hydrogen for energy storage in the near future. The exact mechanisms of urea decomposition are pretty different in alkaline or neutral mediums and are separately discussed in detail. More importantly, the development of anodic electro-catalysts is of great significance for improving the electrochemical performance of both DUFCs and urea electrolysis cells, which is systematically summarized in our review. Challenges and prospects on the future development of urea electro-oxidation are particularly proposed.
本文概述了尿素电氧化的最新进展。尿素的来源丰富，包括人体尿液、含尿素废水和工业尿素，因此作为阳极燃料在直接尿素燃料电池（DUFC）中的应用具有吸引力。此外，作为一种富含氢的化学燃料，尿素也可以通过电解产生氢气，以便在不久的将来进行能量存储。尿素在碱性或中性介质中的分解确切机制大不相同，我们分别进行了详细讨论。更重要的是，阳极电催化剂的发展对于提高 DUFC 和尿素电解池的电化学性能具有重要意义，我们在这篇综述中对此进行了系统总结。本文还特别提出了尿素电氧化未来发展面临的挑战和前景。
