Engineering oxygen-vacancy-rich NiO/CuO composites for efficient photoelectrocatalytic methanol oxidation

With the continuous advancement of the new energy sector, direct methanol fuel cells (DMFCs) have attracted significant research interest. However, the development of DMFCs is hindered by the reliance on platinum-based anode catalysts, which suffer from high cost, intermediate-induced poisoning, and rapid performance degradation. Herein, Lin et al. recently developed a low-cost NiO/CuO composite for efficient methanol oxidation reaction (MOR) through defect engineering and heterojunction strategy. The NiO/CuO composite exhibits higher concentration of oxygen vacancies and interface lattice distortion compared to their individual counterparts. The NiO/CuO composite exhibits exceptional photoelectrochemical MOR activity and stability. The enhanced performance is attributed to the synergistic effect of the NiO/CuO heterojunction and the high concentration of oxygen vacancies, which together improve light absorption, increase the electrochemically active surface area, provide more active sites, and accelerate charge transfer kinetics. This work, reported by Frontiers of Materials Science, presents a promising strategy for designing cost-effective, high-performance photo-assisted anode catalysts for DMFCs.