Water oxidation for electrochemical and photoelectrochemical hydrogen production

Abstract

Water oxidation is simple but considered one of the most important electrochemical reactions; it can provide a clean and cheap source of electrons for various (photo)electrochemical reactions [1]. For example, high-purity hydrogen can be produced in an environmentally friendly manner via electrolysis of water in conjunction with the use of renewable energy sources. However, the oxidation of water is a challenging task and often acts as a rate-determining step for the overall reactions, necessitating the development of efficient water oxidation catalyst (WOC).

In this presentation, recent efforts on the development of homogeneous and heterogeneous WOCs will be reviewed with a specific focus on cheap and stable WOCs consisting of earth-abundant transition metals. Then, I will present our progress over the past few years in the development of efficient heterogeneous WOCs through defect engineering of transition metal oxides [2,3].

[1] S. Bae et al. “Tailored assembly of molecular water oxidation catalysts on photoelectrodes for artificial photosynthesis” Eur. J. Inorg. Chen. 2019, 2019, 2040-2057. [2] Y. Han et al. “Cobalt polyoxometalate-derived CoWO4 oxygen-evolving catalysts for efficient electrochemical and photoelectrochemical water oxidation” J. Catal. 2018, 367, 212-220. [3] C. Kim, et al., In preparation of manuscript.