Developing cost-effective, highly catalytic active, and stable electrocatalysts in alkaline electrolytes is important for the development of highly efficient anion-exchange membrane water electrolysis (AEMWE). To this end, metal oxides/hydroxides have attracted wide research interest for efficient electrocatalysts in water splitting owing to their abundance and tunable electronic properties. It is very challenging to achieve an efficient overall catalytic performance based on single metal oxide/hydroxide-based electrocatalysts due to low charge mobilities and limited stability. This review is mainly focused on the advanced strategies to synthesize the multicomponent metal oxide/hydroxide-based materials that include nanostructure engineering, heterointerface engineering, single-atom catalysts, and chemical modification. The state of the art of metal oxide/hydroxide-based heterostructures with various architectures is extensively discussed. Finally, this review provides the fundamental challenges and perspectives regarding the potential future direction of multicomponent metal oxide/hydroxide-based electrocatalysts.
Keywords: alkaline water splitting; electrocatalysts; single-atom catalysts; transition metal hydroxides; transition metal oxides.