CeO2 modified Ni-MOF as an efficient catalyst for electrocatalytic urea oxidation

The development of cost-efficient electrocatalysts for urea oxidation reaction (UOR) is a challenge due to the slow kinetics. In this work, we demonstrated a one-pot hydrothermal synthetic method to fabricate CeO2 modified Ni-MOF nanosheets. When evaluted as UOR catalysts, the 3% CeO2/Ni-MOF possesses outstanding catalytic activity, achieving a current density of 10 mA cm−2 at a low potential of 1.356 V with a small Tafel slope of 13.83 mV dec−1. It is considered that the unique interactions between CeO2 nanoparticles (NPs) and Ni-MOF nanosheets (NSs) play the significant role in the enhancement of the catalytic performance by inducing the formation of abundant defects and optimized surface states.