Effective Catalysts Design for Selective OER in Seawater

The oxygen evolution reaction (OER), a significant half-reaction in electrocatalytic water splitting to produce green hydrogen, has received considerable research attention. Currently, state-of-the-art water splitting technology utilises the expensive and scarce noble metal-based catalysts and freshwater, a limited resource, as it constitutes less than 1% of the world's total water. To this end, alternative feedstocks, such as seawater, need to be explored, which account for approximately 96.5% of the world's total water.<br/>In recent years, research on developing efficient catalysts for seawater has been gaining significant attention. However, the complex nature of seawater and the presence of dissolved ions like chloride ions (Cl^-) have made seawater splitting more challenging. The Cl^- ions can induce electrode corrosion and have the capacity to engage in competing reactions with the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) at the anode. This necessitates developing highly active electrocatalysts that are exclusively selective towards OER and possess long-term stability. Based on this, I have developed a two-dimensional heterostructure catalyst that achieved 2 A before 2V, was stable for over 500 h and was exclusively OER selective in natural seawater. The catalyst benefits from the synergistic effects between the component 2D materials and strong electronic interactions between them.