A CoVO.sub.x composite electrode and method of making is described. The composite electrode comprises a substrate with an average 0.5-5 m thick layer of CoVO.sub.x having pores with average diameters of 2-200 nm. The method of making the composite electrode involves contacting the substrate with an aerosol comprising a solvent, a cobalt complex, and a vanadium complex. The CoVO.sub.x composite electrode is capable of being used in an electrochemical cell for water oxidation.

A CoVO.sub.x composite electrode and method of making is described. The composite electrode comprises a substrate with an average 0.5-5 m thick layer of CoVO.sub.x having pores with average diameters of 2-200 nm. The method of making the composite electrode involves contacting the substrate with an aerosol comprising a solvent, a cobalt complex, and a vanadium complex. The CoVO.sub.x composite electrode is capable of being used in an electrochemical cell for water oxidation.

A foam electrode comprising surface treatment by the steps of: 1) impregnating soft compressible polymeric foams with a conductive coating via sequential infiltration synthesis and 2) functionalizing the chemically altered voids with an ultrathin redox coating to enhance capacitive deionization (CDI). The redox coating will allow treated foam to absorb ions under the application of a bias, and mechanical compression/decompression. The CDI apparatus uses the void volume of the foam in the uncompressed state to flow liquids through it while the compressed state is used to enhance desalination by limiting the diffusion pathways for the ions to find an adsorption surface.

According to one embodiment, an electrolytic cell includes: a housing for retaining an electrolytic solution; a diaphragm that partitions an interior of the housing into an anode-side cell and a cathode-side cell; an anode electrode that is provided in the anode-side cell and has most of a surface in contact with an anode-side gas phase; and a cathode electrode that is provided in the cathode-side cell and has most of a surface in contact with a cathode-side gas phase. According to the other embodiment, a hydrogen production apparatus according to the present embodiment includes: an electrolytic solution tank that retains an electrolytic solution; and a pump that supplies the electrolytic solution between the anode electrode and the cathode electrode from the electrolytic solution tank.

Photoelectrochemical cells for the oxidation of 5-hydroxymethylfurfural to 2,5-furandicarboxylic acid and/or 2,5-diformylfuran are provided. Also provided are methods of using the cells to carry out the electrochemical and photoelectrochemical oxidation of 5-hydroxymethylfurfural to 2,5-furandicarboxylic acid and/or 2,5-diformylfuran.

A method can include incorporating graphene oxide (GO) in a solution, reducing the graphene oxide (GO) by refluxing carbon nitride (C.sub.3N.sub.4) in the solution to form carbon-nitride refluxed-graphene-oxide (C.sub.3N.sub.4-rGO) composites, and incorporating ruthenium ions into the C.sub.3N.sub.4-rGO composites to form C.sub.3N.sub.4-rGO-Ru complexes.

Catalysts prepared from abundant, cost effective metals, such as cobalt, nickel, chromium, manganese, iron, and copper, and containing one or more neutrally charged ligands (e.g., monodentate, bidentate, and/or polydentate ligands) and methods of making and using thereof are described herein. Exemplary ligands include, but are not limited to, phosphine ligands, nitrogen-based ligands, sulfur-based ligands, and/or arsenic-based ligands. In some embodiments, the catalyst is a cobalt-based catalyst or a nickel-based catalyst. The catalysts described herein are stable and active at neutral pH and in a wide range of buffers that are both weak and strong proton acceptors. While its activity is slightly lower than state of the art cobalt-based water oxidation catalysts under some conditions, it is capable of sustaining electrolysis at high applied potentials without a significant degradation in catalytic current. This enhanced robustness gives it an advantage in industrial and large-scale water electrolysis schemes.

The present invention relates to an oxygen generating apparatus comprising: a membrane-electrode assembly including an anode connected to a first pole of a power supply device, a cathode connected to a second pole of the power supply device, and an electrolyte membrane provided between the anode and the cathode; a water supply source for supplying water to the anode; and an oxygen supply unit for supplying oxygen to the cathode, wherein oxygen (O.sub.2) is generated at the anode by using an oxygen evolution reaction (OER) and water (H.sub.2O) is generated at the cathode by using an oxygen reduction reaction (ORR). The present invention may provide an apparatus for electrochemically generating oxygen, which uses an electrochemical method and thus can generate oxygen without noise or vibration, and has a simple configuration capable of reducing the volume of the apparatus.

A zinc-based metal organic framework and method of making is described. The zinc-based metal organic framework is in the form of an interpenetrating diamondoid framework where each Zn.sup.2+ ion center is linked with four other Zn.sup.2+ ion centers in a distorted tetrahedral geometry. The linking occurs through diamine and dicarboxylic acid linkers. The zinc-based metal organic framework may be deposited on a transparent conducting film and used as a photoelectrode for photoelectrochemical water splitting.

A carrier-nanoparticle complex including: a carbon carrier; a polymer layer provided on a surface of the carbon carrier; and metal nanoparticles provided on the polymer layer, a catalyst including the same, an electrochemical cell or a fuel cell including the catalyst, and a method for preparing the same.