High-Performance Water Oxidation Electrocatalysts: Synthesis and Application

Dear Colleagues,

Increasing the awareness of an anthropogenic climate at present global population needs the alternative secure route to produce sustainable renewable energy by eco-friendly means. Electrochemistry provides such a mechanism to generate clean energy and furnish the space for energy production. However, it requires highly commercial and advanced technology to generate and store energy. Electrocatalytic water splitting has now been accepted as one of the large-scale indirect mediums of energy storage in the form of chemical fuels such as H₂ and O₂. On the other hand, water electrolysis is the only method that can generate clean H₂ in large scale and at an affordable cost. Moreover, it is the only technology that can operate at ambient conditions while being capable of large-scale production. Because of its great potential, people have now immensely started concentrating on replacing the noble metals (Ir, Ru and Pt) used as electrocatalysts in this technology, and in improving their electrocatalytic activity. The recent exponential increase in the number of reports on the oxygen evolution reaction OER is itself indicative of the importance of the research. 

Material chemistry offers a vast route to the synthesis of a target compound with an anticipated structure and morphology. Most researchers focus on non-noble nanostructured materials with distinct grain boundary and high surface area to fulfill the need of efficient water oxidation electrocatalysts. Accordingly, they are following the electrodeposition, electrooxidation, and chemical synthesis (precipitation, hydrothermal, microwave, sol–gel, direct oxidation or reduction, and suit deposition) involved in the material fabrication, as well as the modifications of existing nanomaterials by effective doping. Recently, non-precious electrocatalysts including metal hydroxides, layered double hydroxides, phosphides, chalcogenides, and high-entropy alloys have been the trending materials. Interestingly, non-precious transition metal chalcogenides such as sulfides, selenides, and tellurides are today’s materials for high-performance water oxidation electrocatalysts. However, there is no attempt being made to linearize or explain the nature of the activity, which is highly sensitive to the stoichiometry and electronegativity of the anions, which could be useful to formulate new OER catalyst combinations for cost- and energy-efficient H₂ generation from water.

Therefore, the core objective of this Special Issue is to address the material synthesis and reveal the direct correlation of the nature of the anion, stoichiometry, and accessible surface sites to their inherent electrocatalytic activity. By doing this, one can identify the best pairs of electrocatalysts for energy-efficient water oxidation that are tuned by considering factors such as the anion, nature of the activity, stoichiometry, and surface sites. Therefore, this Special Issue focuses on the state of the art in “High-Performance Water Oxidation Electrocatalysts: Synthesis and Application”. Research outcomes focusing on water oxidation electrocatalyst synthesis, fundamental approaches used to understand the active sites, new mechanisms of exploration, and advanced in-situ/ex-situ characterizations, including applications in technological- and industrial-scale development of water oxidation in the field of water splitting are of prime importance to this Special Issue.

Dr. Arumugam Sivanantham
Dr. Jeyaraj Vinoth Kumar
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Catalysts is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• water splitting
• emerging materials
• electrocatalysts
• oxygen evolution reaction
• in-situ/ex-situ characterizations
• active sites formation mechanism
• structure–activity relationships
• full cell design