Activity and stability of catalysts for electrocatalytic water splitting in acidic media

The quest for sustainable and clean energy sources has never been more urgent in the face of ever-increasing global energy demands and environmental concerns. Electrocatalytic water splitting offers a compelling pathway to produce hydrogen—aclean, renewable, and high-energy fuel. The efficiency of thiselectrochemical process hinges crucially on the performance ofthe catalysts for the hydrogen evolution reactions (HERs) andoxygen evolution reactions (OERs). In recent decades, there hasbeen a significant push to discover and develop cost-effective,high-performance catalytic materials for this technology.Activity and stability are crucial in designing practical catalysts.Thermodynamic activity, due to its ready accessibility in computation, has been widely used to interpret experimentalobservations and guide the search for new catalysts. Despite itssuccess, very few catalysts in experiments have matched theactivity of their noble metal counterparts in acidic electrolytes.Moreover, while there is extensive research on activity, studieson catalyst stability are notably lacking. The mechanisms ofcatalyst degradation are still poorly understood, and a standardized method for assessing catalyst stability computationally hasyet to be established. Herein, we discuss the limitations inkinetic activity and stability of non-noble catalysts used in acidicwater splitting. We propose a standardized protocol for evaluating catalyst stability in computation and discuss the challengesin designing low-cost, high-performance catalysts for watersplitting in acidic media.© Science China Press 2024