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Nitrogen-incorporated iron phosphosulfide nanosheets as efficient bifunctional electrocatalysts for energy-saving hydrogen evolution

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Abstract

Urea-assisted hydrogen evolution is a promising alternative to conventional water splitting for producing hydrogen with reduced energy consumption. Therefore, the development of bifunctional electrocatalysts to be used in urine-mediated electrolyzers for the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) and urea oxidation reaction (UOR) is required. In this work, nitrogen-doped iron phosphorus trisulfide (FePS3) nanosheets were prepared, which performance surpassed platinum on carbon electrocatalysts at large current densities above 140 mA cm−2, exhibiting excellent HER performance. A low overpotential of 756 mV was observed for UOR to drive a current density of 10 mA cm−2. When configured for hydrogen production, the urea electrolysis cell delivered a current density of 10 mA cm−2 at a cell voltage of 1.26 V, which is about 0.28 V lower than in conventional water electrolysis. The development of FePS3-based materials as bifunctional electrocatalysts provides a new approach enabling energy-saving hydrogen production.

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Acknowledgements

We are grateful for the HZWTECH for providing computation facilities.

Funding

This study was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (22075211, 21601136, 51971157, 62005173, and 51621003).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute for New Energy Materials and Low-Carbon Technologies and Tianjin Key Lab for Photoelectric Materials & Devices, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Tianjin University of Technology, Tianjin, 300384, China

    Hao Zhang, Yuan Qiu & Jun Luo

  2. College of Chemistry, Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou, 450000, China

    Shusheng Zhang

  3. Institute for Advanced Study, Chengdu University, Chengdu, 610106, Sichuan, China

    Qian Liu

  4. MOE Key Laboratory of New Processing Technology for Non-Ferrous Metals and Materials, and Guangxi Key Laboratory of Processing for Non-Ferrous Metals and Featured Materials, School of Resource, Environments and Materials, Guangxi University, Nanning, 530004, China

    Xijun Liu

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  1. Hao Zhang
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Correspondence to Yuan Qiu or Xijun Liu.

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Zhang, H., Qiu, Y., Zhang, S. et al. Nitrogen-incorporated iron phosphosulfide nanosheets as efficient bifunctional electrocatalysts for energy-saving hydrogen evolution. Ionics 28, 3927–3934 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11581-022-04634-z

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