Effect of electrolysis voltage on electrochemical reduction of titanium oxide to titanium in molten calcium chloride

The electrochemical reduction of solid TiO2 directly to solid metal is a promising alternative to the current Kroll process. The present work is aimed at studying the effect of electrolysis voltage on the rate of electrochemical reduction. The products of electrochemical reduction of TiO2 and Ti2O were examined using the scanning electron microscopy （SEM） and X-ray diffraction （XRD） techniques. The results show that Ti2O was reduced to low valent titanium oxide at 1.5 -1.7 V, which was the result of ionization of oxygen. TiO2 and Ti20 were reduced to titanium metal at 2.1-3.1 V, which was the co-action of ionization of oxygen and calciothermic reduction. The oxygen content decreased rapidly with voltage increasing from 2.1 to 2.6 V, while it changed little from 2.6 to 3.1 V. The optimized cell voltage was 2.6-3.1 V.

Urea electrooxidation-boosted hydrogen production on nitrogen-doped porous carbon nanorod-supported nickel phosphide nanoparticles

Urea electro-oxidation reaction(UEOR)-boosted water electrolysis can supplant the kinetics-restricted oxygen evolution reaction(OER)and provide an energy-saving method of hydrogen generation.However,low UEOR activity and the poisoning issue of the catalyst limit its practical application.Herein,a simple coordination reaction is used to synthesize the dimethylglyoxime-NiⅡcomplex(DMGNiⅡ),which efficiently serves as the initial precursor to synthesize nitrogen-doped carbon nanorodsupported nickel phosphide nanoparticle(Ni_(2)P/N-C)nanocomposites.The density functional theory calculations and electrochemical results reveal that nitrogen doping can weaken the adsorption of hydrogen and the generated CO_(2)resulting in an enhancement of hydrogen evolution reaction(HER)and UEOR activity.In addition,N-doping can also promote the generation of Ni,which can further promote the UEOR and HER performance.Concretely,the overpotential for the HER on Ni_(2)P/N-C-2h nanocomposites is only 201 m V at 10 mA cm,and the onset potential of the UEOR on NiP/NC-2h nanocomposites is only 1.34 V.Additionally,the Ni_(2)P/N-Cnanocomposites also show excellent long-term stability due to the introduction of nitrogen-doped carbon material.Consequently,the symmetric Ni_(2)P/N-C-2h||Ni_(2)P/N-C-2h urea electrolyzer requires 1.41 V of electrolysis voltage for urea electrolysis,which can be applied in energy-saving H_(2) production and environment purification.