title: Titanate cathodes with enhanced electrical properties achieved via growing surface Ni particles toward efficient carbon dioxide electrolysis.
abstract: Ionic conduction in perovskite oxide is commonly tailored by element doping in lattices to create charge carriers, while few studies have been focused on ionic conduction enhancement through tailoring microstructures. In this work, remarkable enhancement of ionic conduction in titanate has been achieved via in situ growing active nickel nanoparticles on an oxide surface by controlling the oxide material nonstoichiometry. The combined use of XRD, SEM, XPS and EDS indicates that the exsolution/dissolution of the nickel nanoparticles is completely reversible in redox cycles. With the synergetic effect of enhanced ionic conduction of titanate and the presence of catalytic active Ni nanocatalysts, significant improvement of electrocatalytic performances of the titanate cathode is demonstrated. A current density of 0.3 A cm(-2) with a Faradic efficiency of 90% has been achieved for direct carbon dioxide electrolysis in a 2 mm-thick YSZ-supported solid oxide electrolyzer with the modified titanate cathode at 2 V and 1073 K.
authors.affiliation: Key Lab of Design & Assembly of Functional Nanostructure, Fujian Institute of Research on the Structure of Matter, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Fuzhou, Fujian 350002, China. ltye@fjirsm.ac.cn kxie@fjirsm.ac.cn and School of Mechanical and Automotive Engineering, Hefei University of Technology, No. 193 Tunxi Road, Hefei, Anhui 230009, China.
authors.forename: Lizhen
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Gan
authors.affiliation: Key Lab of Design & Assembly of Functional Nanostructure, Fujian Institute of Research on the Structure of Matter, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Fuzhou, Fujian 350002, China. ltye@fjirsm.ac.cn kxie@fjirsm.ac.cn.
authors.forename: Lingting
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Ye
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemical Engineering, School of Engineering, University of Warwick, Coventry, CV4 7AL, UK.
authors.forename: Shanwen
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Tao
authors.affiliation: Key Lab of Design & Assembly of Functional Nanostructure, Fujian Institute of Research on the Structure of Matter, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Fuzhou, Fujian 350002, China. ltye@fjirsm.ac.cn kxie@fjirsm.ac.cn.
authors.forename: Kui
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Xie