Efficient overall water splitting in acid with anisotropic metal nanosheets

Abstract

Water is the only available fossil-free source of hydrogen. Splitting water electrochemically is among the most used techniques, however, it accounts for only 4% of global hydrogen production. One of the reasons is the high cost and low performance of catalysts promoting the oxygen evolution reaction (OER). Here, we report a highly efficient catalyst in acid, that is, solid-solution Ru‒Ir nanosized-coral (RuIr-NC) consisting of 3 nm-thick sheets with only 6 at.% Ir. Among OER catalysts, RuIr-NC shows the highest intrinsic activity and stability. A home-made overall water splitting cell using RuIr-NC as both electrodes can reach 10 mA cm−2geo at 1.485 V for 120 h without noticeable degradation, which outperforms known cells. Operando spectroscopy and atomic-resolution electron microscopy indicate that the high-performance results from the ability of the preferentially exposed {0001} facets to resist the formation of dissolvable metal oxides and to transform ephemeral Ru into a long-lived catalyst.

Metamorphosis of Heterostructured Surface‐Mounted Metal–Organic Frameworks Yielding Record Oxygen Evolution Mass Activities

“…Electrochemical water splitting offers an attractive means for producing renewable hydrogen fuel, which is promising for carbon‐neutral energy provision schemes owing to its high energy density. [ 1–5 ] However, the main cause of low efficiency in this process is the anodic half‐reaction, [ 6,7 ] namely, the oxygen evolution reaction (OER), which shows sluggish kinetics. Hence, exploring highly efficient and cost‐effective earth‐abundant electrocatalysts is a desirable solution to cope with these issues.…”

Vanadium‐Incorporated CoP2 with Lattice Expansion for Highly Efficient Acidic Overall Water Splitting

“…Despite gratifying advances have been made in the past decades, the HER performance is still far from Pt in acidic condition 16,17 . Especially in acidic OER process, most of them are unstable in high oxidation potential according to Pourbaix diagrams 18 . Therefore, developing cost-effective and durable HER/OER electrocatalysts in acidic media is crucial but challenging for the large-scale application of PEMWE.…”

Optimization of Oxygen Evolution Reaction with Electroless Deposited Ni–P Catalytic Nanocoating

“…Electrochemical water splitting has aroused unremitting attention as a promising method to produce H 2 , a clean and sustainable energy carrier considered an alternative to fossil fuels [1][2][3]. Despite its great potential, electrolytic water generation is a thermodynamically uphill process, since the two semi-reactions involved, the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) and the oxygen evolution reaction (OER), are constrained by sluggish kinetics, particularly the OER, which undergoes a complex four-electron transfer process [4,5].…”