Shielded goethite catalyst that enables fast water dissociation in bipolar membranes

Muhammad A Shehzad; Aqsa Yasmin; Xiaolin Ge; Zijuan Ge; Kaiyu Zhang; Xian Liang; Jianjun Zhang; Geng Li; Xinle Xiao; Bin Jiang; Liang Wu; Tongwen Xu

doi:10.1038/s41467-020-20131-1

Shielded goethite catalyst that enables fast water dissociation in bipolar membranes

Nat Commun. 2021 Jan 4;12(1):9. doi: 10.1038/s41467-020-20131-1.

Authors

Muhammad A Shehzad^{1

2}, Aqsa Yasmin^{1

2}, Xiaolin Ge¹, Zijuan Ge¹, Kaiyu Zhang¹, Xian Liang¹, Jianjun Zhang¹, Geng Li¹, Xinle Xiao¹, Bin Jiang³, Liang Wu⁴, Tongwen Xu⁵

Affiliations

¹ CAS Key Laboratory of Soft Matter Chemistry, Collaborative Innovation Centre of Chemistry for Energy Materials, Department of Applied Chemistry, School of Chemistry and Materials Science, University of Science and Technology of China, 230026, Hefei, China.
² Advanced Materials and Membranes Technology Centre, Department of Polymer and Process Engineering, University of Engineering and Technology Lahore, G.T. Road, Punjab, 54890, Pakistan.
³ Department of Chemical Physics, School of Chemistry and Materials Science, University of Science and Technology of China, 230026, Hefei, China.
⁴ CAS Key Laboratory of Soft Matter Chemistry, Collaborative Innovation Centre of Chemistry for Energy Materials, Department of Applied Chemistry, School of Chemistry and Materials Science, University of Science and Technology of China, 230026, Hefei, China. liangwu8@ustc.edu.cn.
⁵ CAS Key Laboratory of Soft Matter Chemistry, Collaborative Innovation Centre of Chemistry for Energy Materials, Department of Applied Chemistry, School of Chemistry and Materials Science, University of Science and Technology of China, 230026, Hefei, China. twxu@ustc.edu.cn.

Abstract

Optimal pH conditions for efficient artificial photosynthesis, hydrogen/oxygen evolution reactions, and photoreduction of carbon dioxide are now successfully achievable with catalytic bipolar membranes-integrated water dissociation and in-situ acid-base generations. However, inefficiency and instability are severe issues in state-of-the-art membranes, which need to urgently resolve with systematic membrane designs and innovative, inexpensive junctional catalysts. Here we show a shielding and in-situ formation strategy of fully-interconnected earth-abundant goethite Fe⁺³O(OH) catalyst, which lowers the activation energy barrier from 5.15 to 1.06 eV per HO - H bond and fabricates energy-efficient, cost-effective, and durable shielded catalytic bipolar membranes. Small water dissociation voltages at limiting current density (U_LCD: 0.8 V) and 100 mA cm^-2 (U₁₀₀: 1.1 V), outstanding cyclic stability at 637 mA cm^-2, long-time electro-stability, and fast acid-base generations (H₂SO₄: 3.9 ± 0.19 and NaOH: 4.4 ± 0.21 M m^-2 min^-1 at 100 mA cm^-2) infer confident potential use of the novel bipolar membranes in emerging sustainable technologies.

Abstract

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