Critical review of platinum group metal-free materials for water electrolysis: Transition from the laboratory to the market: Earth-abundant borides and phosphides as catalysts for sustainable hydrogen production

Alexey Serov, Kirill Kovnir, Michael Shatruk, Yury V. Kolen'ko

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

23 Scopus citations

Abstract

To combat the global problem of carbon dioxide emissions, hydrogen is the desired energy vector for the transition to environmentally benign fuel cell power. Water electrolysis (WE) is the major technology for sustainable hydrogen production. Despite the use of renewable solar and wind power as sources of electricity, one of the main barriers for the widespread implementation of WE is the scarcity and high cost of platinum group metals (pgms) that are used to catalyse the cathodic hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) and the anodic oxygen evolution reaction (OER). Hence, the critical pgm-based catalysts must be replaced with more sustainable alternatives for WE technologies to become commercially viable. This critical review describes the state-of-the-art pgm-free materials used in the WE application, with a major focus on phosphides and borides. Several emerging classes of HER and OER catalysts are reviewed and detailed structure-property correlations are comprehensively summarised. The influence of the crystallographic and electronic structures, morphology and bulk and surface chemistry of the catalysts on the activity towards OER and HER is discussed.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)207-226
Number of pages20
JournalJohnson Matthey Technology Review
Volume65
Issue number2
DOIs
StatePublished - Apr 2021
Externally publishedYes

Funding

We thank all our collaborators and team members for fruitful discussions and support. Alexey Serov acknowledges the US Department of Energy (DOE) O 툀ce of Energy E 툀ciency & Renewable Energy (EERE) (DE-EE0008419, Active and Durable pgm-free Cathodic Electrocatalysts for Fuel Cell Application) and the US DOE EERE (DE-EE0008833, High-Performance AEM LTE with Advanced Membranes, Ionomers and pgm-Free Electrodes). Kirill Kovnir acknowledges support by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 1955456. Michael Shatruk acknowledges support by the Petroleum Research Fund of the American Chemical Society under Grant No. 59251-ND10. Yury Kolen’ko acknowledges the EU’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (CritCat Project, grant agreement No. 686053), and Portuguese National Funding Agency for Science, Research and Technology (CritMag Project, PTDC/ NAN-MAT/28745/2017).

FundersFunder number
Portuguese National Funding Agency for Science, Research and TechnologyPTDC/ NAN-MAT/28745/2017
US DOE EEREDE-EE0008833
National Science Foundation1955456
U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable EnergyDE-EE0008419
American Chemical Society Petroleum Research Fund59251-ND10
Horizon 2020686053

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