Kumar Sanath, Bhanuse Gita B, Fu Yen-Pei
Department of Materials Science and Engineering, National Dong Hwa University, Shou-Feng, Hualien, 974301, Taiwan.
Chemphyschem. 2024 Apr 16;25(8):e202300924. doi: 10.1002/cphc.202300924. Epub 2024 Mar 5.
Electrolysis is a trend in producing hydrogen as a fuel for renewable energy development, and urea electrolysis is considered as one of the advanced electrolysis processes, where efficient materials still need to be explored. Notably, urea electrolysis came into existence to counter-part the electrode reactions in water electrolysis, which has hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) and oxygen evolution reaction (OER). Among those reactions, OER is sluggish and limits water splitting. Hence, urea electrolysis emerged with urea oxidation reaction (UOR) and HER as their reactions to tackle the water electrolysis. Among the explored materials, noble-metal catalysts are efficient, but their cost and scarcity limit the scaling-up of the Urea electrolysis. Hence, current challenges must be addressed, and novel efficient electrocatalysts are to be implemented to commercialize urea electrolysis technology. Phosphides, as an efficient UOR electrocatalyst, have gained huge attention due to their exceptional lattice structure geometry. The phosphide group benefits the water molecule adsorption and water dissociation, and facilitates the oxyhydrate of the metal site. This review summarizes recent trends in phosphide-based electrocatalysts for urea electrolysis, discusses synthesis strategies and crystal structure relationship with catalytic activity, and presents the challenges of phosphide electrocatalysts in urea electrolysis.
电解是生产氢气作为可再生能源发展燃料的一种趋势，尿素电解被认为是先进的电解工艺之一，仍需要探索高效的材料。值得注意的是，尿素电解的出现是为了应对水电解中的电极反应，水电解中有析氢反应（HER）和析氧反应（OER）。在这些反应中，OER反应缓慢，限制了水的分解。因此，尿素电解应运而生，以尿素氧化反应（UOR）和HER作为其反应来解决水电解问题。在已探索的材料中，贵金属催化剂效率高，但成本和稀缺性限制了尿素电解的扩大规模。因此，必须应对当前的挑战，并采用新型高效电催化剂使尿素电解技术商业化。磷化物作为一种高效的UOR电催化剂，因其特殊的晶格结构几何形状而备受关注。磷化物基团有利于水分子的吸附和水的解离，并促进金属位点的羟基化。本文综述了用于尿素电解的磷基电催化剂的最新趋势，讨论了合成策略以及晶体结构与催化活性的关系，并提出了磷化物电催化剂在尿素电解中的挑战。
