Enhancement of electrocatalytic oxygen evolution by chiral molecular functionalization of hybrid 2D electrodes.

A sustainable future requires highly efficient energy conversion and storage processes, where electrocatalysis plays a crucial role. The activity of an electrocatalyst is governed by the binding energy towards the reaction intermediates, while the scaling relationships prevent the improvement of a catalytic system over its volcano-plot limits. To overcome these limitations, unconventional methods that are not fully determined by the surface binding energy can be helpful.

Push-Pull Electronic Effects in Surface-Active Sites Enhance Electrocatalytic Oxygen Evolution on Transition Metal Oxides.

Sustainable electrocatalysis of the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) constitutes a major challenge for the realization of green fuels. Oxides based on Ni and Fe in alkaline media have been proposed to avoid using critical raw materials. However, their ill-defined structures under OER conditions make the identification of key descriptors difficult.

Non-redox doping boosts oxygen evolution electrocatalysis on hematite.

The oxygen evolution reaction (OER) is the major bottleneck to develop viable and cost-effective water electrolysis, a key process in the production of renewable fuels. Hematite, all iron α-FeO, would be an ideal OER catalyst in alkaline media due to its abundance and easy processing. Despite its promising theoretical potential, it has demonstrated very poor OER activity under multiple experimental conditions, significantly worse than that of Co or Ni-based oxides.