The Structural Construction Of Copper Nanoarray Catalysts And Their Applications In Direct Hydrazine Fuel Cell

With energy problem being increasingly prominent, and the growing demand for clean, efficient energy utilization technology, fuel cell is the first choice in the 21st century and it is one of the cleanest, most efficient and safest power technologies, which shows wide tempting prospects. People are devoted to improve the performance of fuel cells through continuous exploration and development. Phase behavior, size, and structure of electrode materials all affect electrochemical performance. Thus optimizing the composition and structure of electrode materials becomes the premise of improving direct hydrazine fuel cell (DHFC). Now for most of the fuel cells, the research of electrode materials is mostly about noble metal materials, and in the research about hydrazine hydrate electro-oxidation reaction (HzOR) the stability of fuel cells is very little, so that now the demand of obtaining negative materials with excellent performance is imminent. As a new generation of fuel cell anode materials, copper materials have a certain catalytic activity with the advantages of low cost and easy preparation, but the research is few. Moreover, the highly ordered Nanoarray structures become a new choice of modern electrode materials. In this article, the research will be processed in the following aspects:By simply electrodepositing a vertically aligned nanostructured Cu film, a "superaerophobic" electrode with low gas bubble adhesion force was achieved, resulting in a small releasing size of the gas product and fast evolution behavior. Benefit from this unique property, the highly porous nanostructured Cu film showed an extraordinary HzOR performance and potential promise in DHFC, along with other advantages of the porous nanostructures. This study exhibits the effectiveness of nanoscale engineering on HzOR performance, thus providing a facile and efficient way for solving the gas adhesion problem in DHFC. Coupling with the optimization of engineering technologies (e.g., channel construction and operating parameters, the performance of DHFC with "superaerophobic" electrode is believed to be maximized to serve as an efficient energy supply.A 3D porous Ni-Cu alloy film was successfully fabricated on a Cu foil substrate through a one-step electro-deposition process. The characterization results confirmed that the Ni-Cu film had a Ni0.43Cu0.57 alloy component and a porous flower-like array structure. The electro-deposition potential and time were tuned according to the structure and properties of Cu-Ni alloy films. The resulting Ni-Cu alloy film was used as the anode in HzOR under moderate conditions (room temperature and dilute hydrazine), and showed an impressive catalytic performance in alkaline media with a high current density of 300 mA cm-2 and a retention rate of 80% after 5000 s, which was better than most of the reported Ni based electro-catalysts. The excellent catalytic properties were considered to be related to the Ni-Cu binary component, porous structure and "superaerophobic" surface of the Ni-Cu alloy film. The study revealed that the 3D porous Ni-Cu alloy film is a promising anode catalyst for DHFCs.