(Invited) Transition Metal Oxide Catalysts for the Oxygen Evolution Reaction

Currently, approximately 96% of global H₂ production is carried out by fossil fuel based routes such as steam reforming of natural gas or coal gasification;¹ while only 4% of H₂ is generated by renewable energy routes such as water splitting. To increase the percentage of H₂ produced by water splitting, it is necessary to lower the overall cost and, at the same time, to improve the efficiency associated with water splitting technologies, which is, closely related to cost, durability and kinetic issues arising from the catalysts used.

Water splitting, also known as water electrolysis, is the separation of the H₂ and O₂ from water using an external power source, denoted as the Hydrogen Evolution Reaction (HER) and the Oxygen Evolution Reaction (OER), respectively.² Even though the main goal of water splitting is to produce H₂, the opposite reaction, the OER, hinders the overall performance of this process. Hence, to make the overall process of water splitting more efficient, new active and more conductive OER catalysts need to be developed.

In general, layered/2D materials exhibit higher surface area and are more conductive than their bulk counterparts therefore hold great promise as next generation materials for the OER.³ Hence, as Transition Metal Oxide (TMO) based materials are currently the best performing catalysts for the OER, it is logical that few layer and 2D TMO materials are likely candidates to emerge as alternative low cost and active catalysts for this electrochemical energy conversion application.² In this talk, layered/2D TMO based materials as potential catalysts for the OER will be discussed.⁴

1. S. Shiva Kumar and V. Himabindu, Materials Science for Energy Technologies, 2019, 2, 442-454.

2. M. P. Browne, Z. Sofer and M. Pumera, Energy & Environmental Science, 2019, 12, 41-58.

3. J. N. Coleman, M. Lotya, A. O'Neill, S. D. Bergin, P. J. King, U. Khan, K. Young, A. Gaucher, S. De, R. J. Smith, I. V. Shvets, S. K. Arora, G. Stanton, H.-Y. Kim, K. Lee, G. T. Kim, G. S. Duesberg, T. Hallam, J. J. Boland, J. J. Wang, J. F. Donegan, J. C. Grunlan, G. Moriarty, A. Shmeliov, R. J. Nicholls, J. M. Perkins, E. M. Grieveson, K. Theuwissen, D. W. McComb, P. D. Nellist and V. Nicolosi, Science, 2011, 331, 568-571.

4. S. Jaśkaniec, C. Hobbs, A. Seral-Ascaso, J. Coelho, M. P. Browne, D. Tyndall, T. Sasaki and V. Nicolosi, Scientific Reports, 2018, 8, 4179.