Bifunctional Ultrathin RhRu0.5-Alloy Nanowire Electrocatalysts for Hydrazine-Assisted Water Splitting

Hydrazine-assisted water electrolysis offers a feasible path for low-voltage green hydrogen production. Herein, the design and synthesis of ultrathin RhRu0.5-alloy wavy nanowires as bifunctional electrocatalysts for both the anodic hydrazine oxidation reaction (HzOR) and the cathodic hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) is reported. It is shown that the RhRu0.5-alloy wavy nanowires can achieve complete electrooxidation of hydrazine with a low overpotential and high mass activity, as well as improved performance for the HER. The resulting RhRu0.5 bifunctional electrocatalysts enable, high performance hydrazine-assisted water electrolysis delivering a current density of 100 mA cm(-2) at an ultralow cell voltage of 54 mV and a high current density of 853 mA cm(-2) at a cell voltage of 0.6 V. The RhRu0.5 electrocatalysts further demonstrate a stable operation at a high current density of 100 mA cm(-2) for 80 hours of testing period with little irreversible degradation. The overall performance greatly exceeds that of the previously reported hydrazine-assisted water electrolyzers, offering a pathway for efficiently converting hazardous hydrazine into molecular hydrogen.

Automated summary

A new type of RhRu0.5 alloy wavy nanowires is designed and synthesized as bifunctional electrocatalysts for hydrazine oxidation reaction (HzOR) and hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) in low-voltage green hydrogen production. The RhRu0.5 alloy wavy nanowires exhibit complete electrooxidation of hydrazine with low overpotential and high mass activity, as well as improved performance for HER.