Bulk CrCoNiFe alloy with high conductivity and density of grain boundaries for oxygen evolution reaction and urea oxidation reaction

Qiancheng Liu; Peng Zhao; Feng Zhao; Jie Zhu; Sudong Yang; Lin Chen; Qian Zhang

doi:10.1016/j.jcis.2023.04.055

Bulk CrCoNiFe alloy with high conductivity and density of grain boundaries for oxygen evolution reaction and urea oxidation reaction

J Colloid Interface Sci. 2023 Aug 15:644:1-9. doi: 10.1016/j.jcis.2023.04.055. Epub 2023 Apr 18.

Authors

Qiancheng Liu¹, Peng Zhao¹, Feng Zhao¹, Jie Zhu², Sudong Yang², Lin Chen², Qian Zhang³

Affiliations

¹ Institute for Advanced Study, Chengdu University, No.2025, Chengluo 12 Avenue, Chengdu 610106, China.
² Institute for Advanced Study, Chengdu University, No.2025, Chengluo 12 Avenue, Chengdu 610106, China; College of Food and Biological Engineering, Chengdu University, Chengdu 610106, China.
³ Institute for Advanced Study, Chengdu University, No.2025, Chengluo 12 Avenue, Chengdu 610106, China. Electronic address: zhangqian@cdu.edu.cn.

PMID: 37088012
DOI: 10.1016/j.jcis.2023.04.055

Abstract

Multiple-principal-element alloys (MPEAs) with maximized configurational entropy show high catalytic activities for oxygen evolution reaction (OER) and urea oxidation reaction (UOR). However, the accurate relationship between their complex components (i.e., elements, phase structure, grain boundary density) and intrinsic catalytic activity is still unclear. Herein, a series of bulk MPEAs with face-centered cubic (FCC) phase structures were fabricated by the arc-melting method under an argon atmosphere. Compared to the CrCoNi and CrCoNiFeMn, the CrCoNiFe affords a higher UOR performance with the lowest overpotential of 331 mV at 10 mA·cm^-2 in 1 M KOH with 0.33 M urea, due to excellent conductivity and high density of grain boundaries. The urea electrolyzer using CrCoNiFe as anode and Pt as cathode shows a low voltage of 1.622 V at 10 mA cm^-2 and long-term stability of 60 h at 20 mA cm^-2 (4.08% decrease). These findings offer a facile strategy for designing bulk MPEAs electrodes for energy conversion.

Keywords: Conductivity; Grain boundary; Multiple-principal-element alloys; Urea oxidation reaction.