H2O2 treatment boosts activity of NiFe layered double hydroxide for electro-catalytic oxidation of urea

Urea oxidation reaction (UOR) provides a method for hydrogen production besides wastewater treatment, but the current limited catalytic activity has prevented the application. Herein, we develop a novel H2O2 treatment strategy for tailoring the surface oxygen ligand of NiFe-layered double hydroxides (NiFe-LDH). The sample after H2O2 treatment (NiFeO-LDH) shows significant enhancement on UOR efficiency, with the potential of 1.37 V (RHE) to reach a current density of 10 mA/cm2. The boost is attributed to the richness adsorption O ligand on NiFeO-LDH as revealed by XPS and Raman analysis. DFT calculation indicates formation of two possible types of oxygen ligands: adsorbed oxygen on the surface and exposed from hydroxyl group, lowered the desorption energy of CO2 product, which lead to the lowered onset potential. This strategy is further extended to NiFe-LDH nano sheet on Ni foam to reach a higher current density of 440 mA/cm2 of UOR at 1.8 V (RHE). The facile surface O ligand manipulation is also expected to give chance to many other electro-catalytic oxidations.