Oxygen Evolution

There is an ever-present struggle to reduce carbon-based energy sources and replace them with low or no-carbon alternatives. The process of splitting water could be the resolution.

A new electrocatalyst made of nickel (Ni), iron (Fe) and silicon (Si) that decreases the amount of energy required to synthesize H2 from water has been manufactured in a simple and cost-effective way, increasing the practicality of H2 as a clean and renewable energy of the future.

Seawater, which comprises more than 95% of the Earth's water, could become a key resource in the sustainable production of clean hydrogen fuel with use of water-splitting catalysts developed by a KAUST-led team.

The MXene class of materials has many talents. An international team led by HZB chemist Michelle Browne has now demonstrated that MXenes, properly functionalized, are excellent catalysts for the oxygen evolution reaction in electrolytic water splitting. They are more stable and efficient than the best metal oxide catalysts currently available. The team is now extensively characterizing these MXene catalysts for…

Electrocatalysis as an efficient energy storage and conversion technology opens up a new path to solve the existing problems of energy depletion and environmental pollution caused by fossil fuel consumption. Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), a class of crystalline porous materials with high specific surface area, high porosity, and designable structure, have shown great potential as new electrocatalysts. However,…

Hydrogen production powered by wind and solar energy is still too expensive if it is to play a role in the clean transition via energy storage and to help decarbonize hard-to-electrify sectors. Much effort in reducing its cost focuses on enhancing production efficiency by improving the performance of iridium-based catalysts that can speed up the oxygen-related part of the electrochemical reaction involved in…

Very soon, we need to become fossil free, not only in the energy sector, but in industry as well. Hydrocarbons or other raw chemicals can be produced in principle using renewable energy and abundant molecules such as water and carbon dioxide with the help of electrocatalytically active materials. But at the moment, those catalyst materials either consist of expensive and rare materials or lack efficiency.

In Texas, hydrogen has drawn attention in recent years as a potential source of clean energy because it burns without producing climate-damaging emissions. However, traditional hydrogen production methods have a substantial carbon footprint, and cleaner methods are expensive and technically complex. Now researchers are reporting a significant advance, a two-electrode catalyst that relies on one […]

A group of researchers has made significant progress in developing cost-effective catalysts for the oxygen evolution reaction (OER), a critical component in technologies such as water splitting and metal-air batteries.

In a study published in ACS Catalysis, a research team led by Prof. Yan Wensheng from the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) has revealed the "volcano-type" relationship between metal loading and acidic oxygen evolution reaction (OER) activity in single-atom catalysts.

The photoelectrochemical (PEC) overall water-splitting reaction (OWS) has been fully developed in the past decade, especially in new catalysts, characterization methods and reaction mechanisms. Compared with the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER), the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) is deemed the bottleneck of OWS due to its sluggish kinetics.

Development of hydrogen-related technologies is essential to realize and sustain a carbon-neutral society. Hydrogen is obtained from water electrolysis; however, the existing catalysts are made of rare and expensive metals. A research group led by the University of Tsukuba has developed a novel and highly active catalyst for water electrolysis using boron and sulfur, which are abundant and inexpensive.

Photosynthesis is the greatest natural process on Earth, converting sunlight into chemical energy on a massive scale and maintaining life. There are basically two successive stages of oxygenic photosynthesis, of which the light-dependent reactions in photosystem II (PSII), and in photosystem I (PSI), enable the oxidation of H2O into molecular oxygen, and production of reducing power (NADPH and ATP), while CO2…

Hydrogen has drawn attention in recent years as a potential source of clean energy because it burns without producing climate-damaging emissions. However, traditional hydrogen production methods have a substantial carbon footprint, and cleaner methods are expensive and technically complex.

Hydrogen has been regarded as a potential energy carrier instead of fossil fuels, addressing energy demand and environmental issues. Proton exchange membrane water electrolysis (PEMWE), with its high energy density, elevated hydrogen purity, and rapid system response, is considered an ideal and sustainable approach to produce green hydrogen. Thus, it could be an effective solution to mitigate the intermittency and…

Carbon dioxide capture, storage, and utilization have been widely researched to achieve CO2 zero emission and resolve climate change issues. Molten salt electrolysis is one promising method to simultaneously capture and convert CO2 into valuable carbon materials and oxygen with high current efficiencies, to provide a promisingly positive cash flow. However, this method still requires investigation for future…

The pressing economic and political challenges faced by countries worldwide have now shifted towards addressing the critical issue of global warming caused by excessive carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. Consequently, there is a growing focus on the application of CO2 reduction reaction (CO2RR) through solid oxide electrolysis cells (SOECs), which have the capability to convert CO2 into valuable carbon monoxide (CO)…

Green hydrogen is hydrogen fuel that is produced using environment-friendly methods. Water electrolysis is one of the primary methods of producing green hydrogen. Here, electrical energy generated using renewable energy sources, such as solar panels or wind energy, is used to drive a water-splitting reaction in an electrochemical cell to produce hydrogen and oxygen.

Prof. Zhang Tao's group at the Ningbo Institute of Materials Technology and Engineering (NIMTE) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), in collaboration with Prof. Hou Yang from Zhejiang University and Prof. Xiao Jianping from the Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics of CAS, proposed a novel two-dimensional (2D) nanoconfinement strategy to strongly enhance the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) activity of…