A review of Ni based powder catalyst for urea oxidation in assisting water splitting reaction

Water splitting has been regarded as a sustainable and environmentally-friendly technique to realize green hydrogen generation, while more energy is consumed due to the high overpotentials required for the anode oxygen evolution reaction. Urea electrooxidation, an ideal substitute, is thus received increasing attention in assisting water-splitting reactions. Note that highly efficient catalysts are still required to drive urea oxidation, and the facile generation of high valence state species is significant in the reaction based on the electrochemical-chemical mechanisms. The high cost and rareness make the noble metal catalysts impossible for further consideration in large-scale application. Ni-based catalysts are very promising due to their cheap price, facile structure tuning, good compatibility, and easy active phase formation. In the light of the significant advances made recently, herein, we reviewed the recent advances of Ni-based powder catalysts for urea oxidation in assisting water-splitting reaction. The fundamental of urea oxidation is firstly presented to clarify the mechanism of urea-assisted water splitting, and then the prevailing evaluation indicators are briefly expressed based on the electrochemical measurements. The catalyst design principle including synergistic effect, electronic effect, defect construction and surface reconstruction as well as the main fabrication approaches are presented and the advances of various Ni-based powder catalysts for urea assisted water splitting are summarized and discussed. The problems and challenges are also concluded for the Ni-based powder catalysts fabrication, the performance evaluation, and their application. Considering the key influencing factors for catalytic process and their application, attention should be given to structure-property relationship deciphering, novel Ni-based powder catalysts development and their construction in the real device; specifically, the effort should be directed to the Ni-based powder catalyst with multi-functions to simultaneously promote the fundamental steps and high anti-corrosion ability by revealing the local structure reconstruction as well as the integration in the practical application. We believe the current summarization will be instructive and helpful for the Ni-based powder catalysts development and understanding their catalytic action for urea-assisted hydrogen generation via water splitting technique.