The kinetic bottleneck in alkaline water electrolysis is the oxygen evolution reaction with respect to its inherent four-electron transfer process. Dispite the fact that non-precious-metal catalysts provided already auspiciously first results, a practical application is hampered with repect to a too low number of active sites, their structural fragility during turnover, as well as, limited synergistic electronic modulation.
Two UniSysCat groups from Matthias Driess and Ingo Zebger worked jointly with the Helmholtz group of Prashanth W. Menezes on the synthesis of a rare-earth-iron-based intermetallic precatalyst system that passes in situ surface reconstruction to form an active heterojunction architecture. The latter of which consists of rare-earth oxide and iron oxyhydroxide.
The observed, exceptional self-reconstruction process strengthens the catalyst structure under harsh alkaline conditions and creates, in additon, abundant heterointerfaces, which synergistically optimize charge transfer as well as intermediate adsorption/desorption. Further, thermodynamics, kinetics, and stability of the OER reaction are simultaneously augmented.
Read more:
Non-leaching cerium oxide evolved from Laves phase enables iron-retentive oxygen evolution
Z. Chen, H. Yang, R. Yang , T. Manjur Ahamad, G. Dai, I. Zebger, M. Driess, P. W. Menezes
Chem Catalysis 2025, 5, 101518, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.checat.2025.101518