Superaerophobic hydrogels for enhanced electrochemical and photoelectrochemical hydrogen production

Dasom Jeon; Jinwoo Park; Changhwan Shin; Hyunwoo Kim; Ji-Wook Jang; Dong Woog Lee; Jungki Ryu

doi:10.1126/sciadv.aaz3944

Superaerophobic hydrogels for enhanced electrochemical and photoelectrochemical hydrogen production

Sci Adv. 2020 Apr 10;6(15):eaaz3944. doi: 10.1126/sciadv.aaz3944. eCollection 2020 Apr.

Authors

Dasom Jeon^{1

2}, Jinwoo Park³, Changhwan Shin^{2

3}, Hyunwoo Kim^{1

2}, Ji-Wook Jang^{2

3}, Dong Woog Lee³, Jungki Ryu^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Energy Engineering, School of Energy and Chemical Engineering, Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST), Ulsan, Republic of Korea.
² Emergent Hydrogen Technology R&D Center, Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST), Ulsan, Republic of Korea.
³ Department of Chemical Engineering, School of Energy and Chemical Engineering, Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST), Ulsan, Republic of Korea.

Abstract

The efficient removal of gas bubbles in (photo)electrochemical gas evolution reactions is an important but underexplored issue. Conventionally, researchers have attempted to impart bubble-repellent properties (so-called superaerophobicity) to electrodes by controlling their microstructures. However, conventional approaches have limitations, as they are material specific, difficult to scale up, possibly detrimental to the electrodes' catalytic activity and stability, and incompatible with photoelectrochemical applications. To address these issues, we report a simple strategy for the realization of superaerophobic (photo)electrodes via the deposition of hydrogels on a desired electrode surface. For a proof-of-concept demonstration, we deposited a transparent hydrogel assembled from M13 virus onto (photo)electrodes for a hydrogen evolution reaction. The hydrogel overlayer facilitated the elimination of hydrogen bubbles and substantially improved the (photo)electrodes' performances by maintaining high catalytic activity and minimizing the concentration overpotential. This study can contribute to the practical application of various types of (photo)electrochemical gas evolution reactions.

Copyright © 2020 The Authors, some rights reserved; exclusive licensee American Association for the Advancement of Science. No claim to original U.S. Government Works. Distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial License 4.0 (CC BY-NC).