Recent progress on multimetal oxide catalysts for the oxygen evolution reaction

Abstract

Hydrogen is a promising alternative fuel for efficient energy production and storage, with water splitting considered one of the most clean, environmentally friendly, and sustainable approaches to generate hydrogen. However, to meet industrial demands with electrolysis-generated hydrogen, the development of a low-cost and efficient catalyst for the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) is critical, while conventional catalysts are mostly based on precious metals. Many studies have thus focused on exploring new efficient nonprecious-metal catalytic systems and improving the understandings on the OER mechanism, resulting in the design of catalysts with superior activity compared with that of conventional catalysts. In particular, the use of multimetal rather than single-metal catalysts is demonstrated to yield remarkable performance improvement, as the metal composition in these catalysts can be tailored to modify the intrinsic properties affecting the OER. Herein, recent progress and accomplishments of multimetal catalytic systems, including several important groups of catalysts: layered hydroxide, spinel, and amorphous metal oxides along with the theoretical principles of activity enhancement in multimetal systems are reviewed. Finally, this is concluded by discussing remaining challenges to achieve further improvements of OER catalyst activities.