Electrospinning fabrication of sulfophobic Mo-NiS2/CNFs for energy-saving sulfur valorization coupled hydrogen production in anion exchange membrane electrolyzer
摘要
The sulfion oxidation reaction (SOR) has enormous potential in replacing slow kinetic oxygen evolution reactions and treating sulfur-containing wastewater. However, the sulfur aggregation generated by SOR will lead to a decline in SOR activity. Herein, an electrospinning-carbonization-vulcanization technique is introduced to fabricate Mo-NiS2-co-embedded carbon nanofibers (Mo-NiS2/CNFs). The integration of molybdenum promotes sulfophobicity of Mo-NiS2/CNFs, and can thus effectively prevent its activity from being deactivated by sulfur deposition on the electrode surface during SOR, thereby improving catalytic activity and long-term stability. In particular, Mo-NiS2/CNFs showed a distinguished durability at 100 mA cm−2 at least 100 h. In-situ Raman spectra tracked the evolution and oxidation conversion of S2− to short-chain polysulfides (S22−–S42−), ultimately to value-added S8. Density functional theory calculations unveiled that the introduction of Mo efficiently regulated the d-band center of NiS2, reduced the energy barrier in the rate-determining step from S22− to S32− and the Gibbs free energy of H* adsorption, and thereby significantly promoted SOR and hydrogen evolution reaction (HER). Mo-NiS2/CNFs-based anion exchange membrane water electrolyzer for HER and SOR achieved a current density of 500 mA cm−2 at 1.78 V for continuous H2 and S8 productions. Such a coupling system performed an ultra-low power consumption of 2.127 kW h m−3 H2 at 500 mA cm−2, showing an energy-saving hydrogen production and high desulfurization ability for environmental protection and remediation.