Efficient oxygen evolution electrocatalysis in acid by a perovskite with face-sharing IrO6 octahedral dimers

Lan Yang; Guangtao Yu; Xuan Ai; Wensheng Yan; Hengli Duan; Wei Chen; Xiaotian Li; Ting Wang; Chenghui Zhang; Xuri Huang; Jie-Sheng Chen; Xiaoxin Zou

doi:10.1038/s41467-018-07678-w

Efficient oxygen evolution electrocatalysis in acid by a perovskite with face-sharing IrO₆ octahedral dimers

Nat Commun. 2018 Dec 7;9(1):5236. doi: 10.1038/s41467-018-07678-w.

Authors

Lan Yang^{1

2}, Guangtao Yu³, Xuan Ai¹, Wensheng Yan⁴, Hengli Duan⁴, Wei Chen⁵, Xiaotian Li², Ting Wang³, Chenghui Zhang³, Xuri Huang³, Jie-Sheng Chen⁶, Xiaoxin Zou⁷

Affiliations

¹ State Key Laboratory of Inorganic Synthesis and Preparative Chemistry, College of Chemistry, Jilin University, 130012, Changchun, People's Republic of China.
² College of Materials Science and Engineering, Jilin University, 130022, Changchun, People's Republic of China.
³ Laboratory of Theoretical and Computational Chemistry, Institute of Theoretical Chemistry, Jilin University, 130023, Changchun, People's Republic of China.
⁴ National Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory, University of Science and Technology of China, 230029, Hefei, Anhui, People's Republic of China.
⁵ Laboratory of Theoretical and Computational Chemistry, Institute of Theoretical Chemistry, Jilin University, 130023, Changchun, People's Republic of China. w_chen@jlu.edu.cn.
⁶ School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, 200240, Shanghai, People's Republic of China.
⁷ State Key Laboratory of Inorganic Synthesis and Preparative Chemistry, College of Chemistry, Jilin University, 130012, Changchun, People's Republic of China. xxzou@jlu.edu.cn.

Abstract

The widespread use of proton exchange membrane water electrolysis requires the development of more efficient electrocatalysts containing reduced amounts of expensive iridium for the oxygen evolution reaction (OER). Here we present the identification of 6H-phase SrIrO₃ perovskite (6H-SrIrO₃) as a highly active electrocatalyst with good structural and catalytic stability for OER in acid. 6H-SrIrO₃ contains 27.1 wt% less iridium than IrO₂, but its iridium mass activity is about 7 times higher than IrO₂, a benchmark electrocatalyst for the acidic OER. 6H-SrIrO₃ is the most active catalytic material for OER among the iridium-based oxides reported recently, based on its highest iridium mass activity. Theoretical calculations indicate that the existence of face-sharing octahedral dimers is mainly responsible for the superior activity of 6H-SrIrO₃ thanks to the weakened surface Ir-O binding that facilitates the potential-determining step involved in the OER (i.e., O* + H₂O → HOO* + H⁺ + e_¯).

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't