iScience (Jan 2024)

Boosting electrocatalytic performance via electronic structure regulation for acidic oxygen evolution

  • Qian Wu,
  • Qingping Gao,
  • Xingpeng Wang,
  • Yuping Qi,
  • Li Shen,
  • Xishi Tai,
  • Fan Yang,
  • Xun He,
  • Yan Wang,
  • Yongchao Yao,
  • Yuchun Ren,
  • Yonglan Luo,
  • Shengjun Sun,
  • Dongdong Zheng,
  • Qian Liu,
  • Sulaiman Alfaifi,
  • Xuping Sun,
  • Bo Tang

Journal volume & issue
Vol. 27, no. 1
p. 108738

Abstract

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Summary: High-purity hydrogen produced by water electrolysis has become a sustainable energy carrier. Due to the corrosive environments and strong oxidizing working conditions, the main challenge faced by acidic water oxidation is the decrease in the activity and stability of anodic electrocatalysts. To address this issue, efficient strategies have been developed to design electrocatalysts toward acidic OER with excellent intrinsic performance. Electronic structure modification achieved through defect engineering, doping, alloying, atomic arrangement, surface reconstruction, and constructing metal-support interactions provides an effective means to boost OER. Based on introducing OER mechanism commonly present in acidic environments, this review comprehensively summarizes the effective strategies for regulating the electronic structure to boost the activity and stability of catalytic materials. Finally, several promising research directions are discussed to inspire the design and synthesis of high-performance acidic OER electrocatalysts.

Keywords