Quantum confinement-induced anti-electrooxidation of metallic nickel electrocatalysts for hydrogen oxidation

作者：Yuanyuan Zhou, Wei Yuan, Mengting Li, Zhenyang Xie, Xiaoyun Song, Yang Yang, Jian Wang, Li Li, Wei Ding, Wen‐Feng Lin, Zidong Wei · 发表于：Nature Energy · 年份：2024 · DOI：10.1038/s41560-024-01604-9 · 被引用次数：68 · 研究领域：Electrocatalysts for Energy Conversion、Advanced battery technologies research、Fuel Cells and Related Materials

Abstract The anion-exchange-membrane fuel cell (AEMFC) is an attractive and cost-effective energy-conversion technology because it can use Earth-abundant and low-cost non-precious metal catalysts. However, non-precious metals used in AEMFCs to catalyse the hydrogen oxidation reaction are prone to self-oxidation, resulting in irreversible failure. Here we show a quantum well-like catalytic structure (QWCS), constructed by atomically confining Ni nanoparticles within a carbon-doped-MoO x /MoO x heterojunction (C-MoO x /MoO x ) that can selectively transfer external electrons from the hydrogen oxidation reaction while remaining itself metallic. Electrons of Ni nanoparticles gain a barrier of 1.11 eV provided by the QWCS leading to Ni stability up to 1.2 V versus the reversible hydrogen electrode (V RHE ) whereas electrons released from the hydrogen oxidation reaction easily cross the barrier by a gating operation of QWCS upon hydrogen adsorption. The QWCS-catalysed AEMFC achieved a high-power density of 486 mW mg Ni −1 and withstood hydrogen starvation operations during shutdown–start cycles, whereas a counterpart AEMFC without QWCS failed in a single cycle.