Issue 14, 2020

Boosting electrochemical water oxidation: the merits of heterostructured electrocatalysts

Abstract

Hydrogen is a promising clean energy carrier and plays a significant role in establishing sustainable energy delivery and consumption systems. Electrochemical water splitting has shown attractive potential with regard to hydrogen production, and countless efforts have been devoted to developing advanced electrocatalysts for water splitting in recent years. Specifically, the development of robust electrocatalysts for the water oxidation reaction, namely the oxygen evolution reaction (OER), is more challenging due to the four-electron transfer process and high working potentials in corrosive environments. Recently, a variety of heterostructured electrocatalysts have exhibited intriguing performance toward water oxidation due to their unique structural merits including the confinement effect, electronic interaction, strain effect, interfacial bonding effect, and synergistic effect. In this review, the recent advances in heterostructured electrocatalysts for the OER are highlighted, and the underlying theories are summarized. Notably, we place a strong focus on heterostructures as a whole rather than reviewing individual building blocks separately, aiming to emphasize the superiorities of heterostructured electrocatalysts and discuss the relevant structure–function relationship. Also, the general design principles for constructing efficient heterostructured electrocatalysts toward water oxidation are summarized. This review provides new insights into understanding the interface chemistry in heterostructured OER electrocatalysts, and will provide a variety of new possibilities for the design and development of advanced OER electrocatalysts and beyond.

Graphical abstract: Boosting electrochemical water oxidation: the merits of heterostructured electrocatalysts

Article information

Article type
Highlight
Submitted
17 Jan 2020
Accepted
13 Mar 2020
First published
13 Mar 2020

J. Mater. Chem. A, 2020,8, 6393-6405

Boosting electrochemical water oxidation: the merits of heterostructured electrocatalysts

G. Zhao, K. Rui, S. X. Dou and W. Sun, J. Mater. Chem. A, 2020, 8, 6393 DOI: 10.1039/D0TA00708K

To request permission to reproduce material from this article, please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

If you are an author contributing to an RSC publication, you do not need to request permission provided correct acknowledgement is given.

If you are the author of this article, you do not need to request permission to reproduce figures and diagrams provided correct acknowledgement is given. If you want to reproduce the whole article in a third-party publication (excluding your thesis/dissertation for which permission is not required) please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

Read more about how to correctly acknowledge RSC content.

Social activity

Spotlight

Advertisements