Transition Metal Nitrides for Electrocatalytic Energy Conversion: Opportunities and Challenges.
Electrocatalytic energy conversion has been considered as one of the most efficient and promising pathways for realizing energy storage and energy utilization in modern society. To improve electrocatalytic reactions, specific catalysts are needed to lower the overpotential. In the search for efficient alternatives to noble metal catalysts, transition metal nitrides have attracted considerable interest due to their high catalytic activity and unique electronic structure. Over the past few decades, numerous nitride-based catalysts have been explored with respect to their ability to drive various electrocatalytic reactions, such as the hydrogen evolution reaction and the oxygen evolution reaction to achieve water splitting and the oxygen reduction reaction coupled with the methanol oxidation reaction to construct fuel cells or rechargeable Li-O2 batteries. This Minireview provides a brief overview of recent progress on electrocatalysts based on transition metal nitrides, and outlines the current challenges and future opportunities.
College of Chemistry, Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, Collaborative Innovation Center of Functionalized Probes for Chemical Imaging in Universities of Shandong, Key Laboratory of Molecular and Nano Probes, Ministry of Education, Shandong Normal University, Jinan, Shandong, 250014, P. R. China.|Hefei National Laboratory for Physical Sciences at the Microscale, Department of Chemistry, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui, 230026, P. R. China.
Junfeng
J
Xie
Hefei National Laboratory for Physical Sciences at the Microscale, Department of Chemistry, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui, 230026, P. R. China. yxie@ustc.edu.cn.
Yi
Y
Xie
electrocatalysis; energy conversion; hydrogen evolution reaction; oxygen evolution reaction; oxygen reduction reaction