Journal Article

Optimizing Perovskites for the Water-Splitting Reaction

Vojvodic, Aleksandra, Nørskov, Jens K.

2011

Overview

The electron occupation of orbitals in transition metal oxides guided the identification of an efficient oxygen evolution catalyst based on Earth-abundant elements. Electrochemical splitting of water into molecular oxygen (O 2 ), protons, and electrons could provide a way to store the electricity generated from sustainable but intermittent energy sources, such as wind and solar power, as fuels ( 1 ). Hydrogen would be the simplest fuel to make, but the protons and electrons could be used to produce hydrocarbons and alcohols from CO 2 or ammonia from N 2 . A major challenge is that efficient catalysts for water electrolysis are expensive and contain rare noble metals, so cost-effective approaches will require the discovery of efficient electrocatalysts that contain only Earth-abundant elements. On page 1383 of this issue, Suntivich et al. ( 2 ) describe a method for rational design of metal oxide catalysts for the oxygen evolution reaction. They discovered perovskite-structure catalysts based on non-noble metals that work with a higher efficiency than one of the state-of-the-art catalysts, iridium oxide.

• Publisher: American Association for the Advancement of Science,The American Association for the Advancement of Science
• Subject: Adsorption / Carbon dioxide / Catalysts / Conduction bands / Electrochemistry / Electrolysis / Electrons / Energy sources / Iridium / Optimization techniques / Oxides / Oxygen / Perovskite / Perovskites / PERSPECTIVES / Protons / Solar power / Strong nuclear force / Transition metals