A tri-functional self-supported electrocatalyst featuring mostly NiTeO perovskite for H production methanol-water co-electrolysis.

A self-supported NiTeO perovskite is made by deploying an extended hydrothermal tellurization strategy with a restricted Te content, which was found to be exceptionally active towards the oxidation of water and methanol and the reduction of water in 1.0 M KOH where it delivered -10 mA cm at just -1.54 V for a full cell featuring MOR‖HER.

Ambiguities and best practices in the determination of active sites and real surface area of monometallic electrocatalytic interfaces.

Determining the number of electrocatalytically accessible sites (ECAS) and real surface area (RSA) for any given electrocatalyst precisely is important in energy conversion electrocatalysis as these are directly used in the determination of intrinsic activity markers. For monometallic electrocatalysts and electrocatalysts of just one type of active site, there believed to be ways of making precise determination of ECAS and RSA using underpotential deposition (UPD), stripping, and redox-charge integration employing transient voltammetric sweeping techniques. This transient nature of sweeping techniques makes the determination of ECAS and RSA relatively less reliable.

The Significance of Properly Reporting Turnover Frequency in Electrocatalysis Research.

For decades, turnover frequency (TOF) has served as an accurate descriptor of the intrinsic activity of a catalyst, including those in electrocatalytic reactions involving both fuel generation and fuel consumption. Unfortunately, in most of the recent reports in this area, TOF is often not properly reported or not reported at all, in contrast to the overpotentials at a benchmarking current density. The current density is significant in determining the apparent activity, but it is affected by catalyst-centric parasitic reactions, electrolyte-centric competing reactions, and capacitance.

Strategies and Perspectives to Catch the Missing Pieces in Energy-Efficient Hydrogen Evolution Reaction in Alkaline Media.

Transition metal hydroxides (M-OH) and their heterostructures (X|M-OH, where X can be a metal, metal oxide, metal chalcogenide, metal phosphide, etc.) have recently emerged as highly active electrocatalysts for hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) of alkaline water electrolysis. Lattice hydroxide anions in metal hydroxides are primarily responsible for observing such an enhanced HER activity in alkali that facilitate water dissociation and assist the first step, the hydrogen adsorption.