Activity and stability of electrochemically and thermally treated iridium for the oxygen evolution reaction

By S. Geiger, O. Kasian, B. Shrestha, A. Mingers, K. Mayrhofer, S. Cherevko. 2016

195 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Iridium is the main element in modern catalysts for the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) in proton exchange membrane water electrolyzers(PEMWE),whichispredominantlyduetoitsrelativelygoodactivityandtolerablestabilityinharshPEMWEconditions.Limitedabundanceofiridium,however,poseslimitationsonwidespreadapplicationsofthesedevices,inparticularinthelargescaleconversionandstorageofrenewableenergy.Inthisworkweinvestigateiftheelectrocatalyticperformanceofiridiumcanbefine-tunedbythermaltreatmentofcatalystsatdifferenttemperatures.TheOERactivityandthedissolutionoftwodifferentiridiumelectrodes, viz. (a) flat metallic iridium surfaces prepared by electron beam physical vapor deposition (EBPVD) and (b) electrochemically prepared porous hydrous iridium oxide films (HIROF) are studied. The range of applied annealing temperatures is 100 ◦ C–600 ◦ C, with a general trend of decreasing activity and increasing stability the higher the temperature. Numerous peculiarities in the trend are however observed. These are discussed considering variations of oxide structure, morphology and electronic conductivity.

Subfields: Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Materials Chemistry, Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/913f35a8c81f80a4d545d7dbbdf845c706f24c32