Carbon-encapsulated Co3V decorated Co2VO4 nanosheets for enhanced urea oxidation and hydrogen evolution reaction

Exploiting highly efficient catalysts to treat wastewater containing urea via electrocatalytic oxidation is significant for environmental protection and energy requirements. Hence, a carbon-encapsulated Co3V decorated Co2VO4 nanosheets catalyst (Co3[email protected]/Co2VO4) is synthesized to accelerate urea oxidation reaction (UOR) and hydrogen evolution reaction (HER). It displays low potentials of 1.31 V and −51 mV to drive ±10 mA cm−2 in 1.0 M KOH + 0.5 M urea solution for UOR and HER, respectively. Impressively, for urea-assisted water splitting, only 1.37 V is needed to deliver 10 mA cm−2, and it can maintain at 100 mA cm−2 for 100 h without significant activity decay. The good performance is attributed to the heterojunction between alloy and metal oxide, as well as the carbon-encapsulating and distinctive nanosheets structure. This study provides a novel choice for developing low cost and high-performance bifunctional catalysts to deal with urea-contained wastewater and produce hydrogen.