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Efficient bifunctional catalysts of CoSe/N-doped carbon nanospheres supported Pt nanoparticles for methanol electrolysis of hydrogen generation

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Abstract

Methanol electrolysis is significant but challenging as an energy-saving technique for electrochemical hydrogen production. Herein, we demonstrated a novel and efficient bifunctional catalyst of CoSe/N-doped carbon nanospheres supported Pt nanoparticles for hydrogen generation via methanol electrolysis; high catalytic performance for both methanol oxidation (MOR) and hydrogen evolution (HER) was observed benefitting from the effective interaction of metal and support effect as well as the oxophilic characteristics of cobalt selenide. Theoretical calculation disclosed the increased charge density of Pt induced by the CoSe/NC support has a bifunctional ability for optimizing the H* adsorption energy for hydrogen evolution reaction and weakening the CO adsorption energy of methanol oxidation reaction. Specifically, the largely improved CO-tolerance ability was observed in the CO-stripping technique, where about 90 mV less of the peak potential for CO oxidation than that of Pt/C catalyst was observed, resulting from a strong electronic effect as indicated by the spectroscopic analysis. The peak current density of 84.2 mA·cm−2 was found for MOR, which was about 3.1 times higher than that of Pt/C; and a low overpotential of 32 mV was required to reach 10 mA·cm−2 for HER in 0.5 mol·L−1 H2SO4 with 1.0 mol·L−1 CH3OH. When serviced as both anode and cathode catalyst in a methanol electrolyzer, a low cell potential of 0.67 V to offer 10 mA cm−2 was obtained, about 170 mV less than that of Pt/C catalyst; moreover, it was 1.1 V lower than that of water-splitting (1.77 V), indicating a promising energy-saving technique for hydrogen generation. They also showed very good catalytic stability and anti-poisoning ability during the catalysis process. This work would help understand the metal-support interaction for hydrogen generation vis methanol electrolysis.

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Acknowledgements

The work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 21972124), a project funded by the Priority Academic Program Development of Jiangsu Higher Education Institution. L. Feng also thanks the support of the Six Talent Peaks Project of Jiangsu Province (XCL-070-2018) and the support of Yangzhou Municipal Science and Technology Planning Project (No. YZ2020028).

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  1. School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Yangzhou University, Yangzhou, 225002, China

    Yang Zhou, Qiaowei Wang & Ligang Feng

  2. State Key Laboratory of Marine Resource Utilization in South China Sea, Hainan Provincial Key Lab of Fine Chemistry, School of Chemical Engineering and Technology, Hainan University, Haikou, 570228, China

    Xinlong Tian

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Efficient bifunctional catalysts of CoSe/N-doped carbon nanospheres supported Pt nanoparticles for methanol electrolysis of hydrogen generation

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Zhou, Y., Wang, Q., Tian, X. et al. Efficient bifunctional catalysts of CoSe/N-doped carbon nanospheres supported Pt nanoparticles for methanol electrolysis of hydrogen generation. Nano Res. 15, 8936–8945 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-022-4907-0

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