NICKEL HYDROXIDE NANORIBBONS FOR EFFICIENT WATER SPLITTING AND DIRECT METHANOL FUEL CELL
Oxygen evolution reaction (OER) and methanol oxidation reaction (MOR) are very important reactions in hydrogen harvesting system and direct methanol fuel cell (DMFC). However, these two reactions are sluggish processes, due to the multi-proton coupled reactions. In this work, we report the first stabilized non-stochiometric Ni(OH)2 nanoribbons (NR-Ni(OH)2) with alternating 4- and 6- coordinated Ni edge atoms. In OER applications, the NR-Ni(OH)2 exhibits remarkable OER catalytic activity with an overpotential of 162 mV at 10 mA cm-2, which is one of the best OER activity reported among any OER materials reported till date. Traditional Ni(OH)2 can only oxidize the methanol if the potential larger than 1.35 V vs RHE, while NR-Ni(OH)2 is able to exhibit MOR activity at a significantly lower onset potential of 0.55 V vs RHE. This is the first reported non-platinum metal in DMFC operation, and it displays better stability than Pt in extended operations.
Oxygen evolution reaction, methanol oxidation reaction, direct methanol fuel cell, four-coordinated Ni atoms, nanoribbon, nickel hydroxide
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