Design strategies for non-precious metal oxide electrocatalysts for oxygen evolution reactions

Developing highly active electrocatalysts for oxygen evolution reaction (OER) is key to improve the water splitting efficiency for production of clean hydrogen energy. Non-precious transition metal oxides (TMOs) are attractive electrocatalysts for OER but usually suffer from relatively low intrinsic activity, poor electrical conductivity and inferior stability. In this current opinion article, recent design strategies for enhancing TMO-based OER electrocatalysts have been outlined including (i) nanostructuring for enhancing surface area and number of active sites, (ii) tuning catalyst composition and electronic structure for enhancing intrinsic activity of each site, (iii) hybridizing with catalyst support for enhancing conductivity, and stability, and (iv) hierarchical porous electrode architecture for enhancing OER efficiency.