Promising Electrocatalysts for Hydrogen Production in Acidic Environment

Dear Colleagues,

The generation of hydrogen energy, a green chemical fuel, using water electrolysis is a promising way for the development of renewable energy. Electrochemical water splitting is composed of a hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) and an oxygen evolution reaction (OER) with the involvement of two electrons at the cathode and four electrons at the anode in both acidic and alkaline media. Currently, noble electrocatalysts such as Pt and Ir/Ru-based compounds for HERs and OERs, respectively, are considered as promising electrocatalysts for water electrolysis. Nevertheless, their usage is hampered by their scarcity and robust cost. Moreover, developing relatively cheaper electrocatalysts for OER with high activity and stability in an acidic environment is a challenging task, but the currently used OER electrocatalysts for water electrolysis in an acidic medium are expensive and scarce. Furthermore, the cost of the water electrolyzer system can be considerably reduced by developing noble-metal-free electrocatalysts (especially bifunctional electrocatalysts) in an alkaline environment without using a separator. However, the mixing of H₂ and O₂ gases could occur during gas collection by using bifunctional catalysts for water electrolysis and that can lead to an additional cost for the separation of gases. Therefore, proton exchange membrane (PEM) water electrolysis in an acidic environment could be useful to alleviate gas mixing issues to a certain extent. Hence, developing efficient and relatively cheap acid-stable HER and especially OER electrocatalysts are necessary for PEM water electrolysis applications.

Dr. Mohammed-Ibrahim Jamesh
Guest Editor

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• HER electrocatalysts
• OER electrocatalysts
• electrochemical water splitting in acid environment