Rare earth alloy nanomaterials in electrocatalysis

With the rapid development of society and economy, the excessive consumption of fossil energy has led to the global energy and environment crisis. In order to explore the sustainable development of new energy, research based on electrocatalysis has attracted extensive attention in the academic cir-cle. The main challenge in this field is to develop nano-catalysts with excellent electrocatalytic activ-ity and selectivity for target products. The state of the active site in catalyst plays a decisive role in the activity and selectivity of the reaction. In order to design efficient and excellent catalysts, it is an effective means to adjust the electronic structure of catalysts. Electronic effects are also called ligand effects. By alloying with rare earth (RE) elements, electrons can be redistributed between RE ele-ments and transition metal elements, achieving accurate design of the electronic structure of the active site in the alloy. Because of the unique electronic structure of RE, it has been paid attention in the field of catalysis. The outermost shell structure of RE elements is basically the same as that of the lower shell, except that the number of electrons in the 4f orbital is different, but the energy level is similar, so their properties are very similar. When RE elements form compounds, both the f electrons in the outermost shell and the d electrons in the lower outer shell can participate in bonding. In addition, part of the 4f electrons in the third outer shell can also participate in bonding. In order to improve the performance of metal catalysts, alloying provides an effective method to design advanced functional materials. RE alloys can integrate the unique electronic structure and cat-alytic behavior of RE elements into metal materials, which not only provides an opportunity to adjust the electronic structure and catalytic activity of the active component, but also enhances the structural stability of the alloy and is expected to significantly improve the catalytic performance of the catalyst. From the perspective of electronic and catalytic activity, RE elements have unique electronic configuration and lanthanide shrinkage effect. Alloying with RE elements will make the alloy have more abundant electronic structure, activity, and spatial arrangement, effectively adjusting the reaction kinetics of the electrochemical process of the catalyst. In this paper, the composition, structure, synthesis of RE alloys and their applications in the field of electrocatalysis are summa-rized, including the hydrogen evolution reaction, the oxygen evolution reaction, the oxygen reduction reaction, the methanol oxidation reaction, the ethanol oxidation reaction, and other catalytic reac-tions. At the same time, the present challenges of RE alloy electrocatalytic materials are summarized and their future development direction is pointed out. In the field of electrocatalysis, the cost of cat-alyst is too high and the stability is not strong. Therefore, the testing process should be related to the actual application, and the test method should be standardized, so as to carry forward the field of electrocatalysis.& COPY; 2023 Science Press and Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences. Published by ELSEVIER B.V. and Science Press. All rights reserved.

Automated summary

In this paper, the research and application of rare earth alloys in the field of electrocatalysis are summarized. It is found that rare earth alloys can effectively adjust the reaction activity and selectivity of catalysts due to their unique electronic structure. The study shows that rare earth alloys can improve the structural stability and catalytic performance of catalysts, playing an important role in solving the energy and environmental crisis.