A catalyst functions by stabilizing reaction intermediates, usually through surface adsorption. In the oxygen evolution reaction (OER), surface oxygen adsorption plays an indispensable role in the electrocatalysis. The relationship between the adsorption energetics and OER kinetics, however, has not yet been experimentally measured. Herein we report an experimental relationship between the adsorption of surface oxygen and the kinetics of the OER on IrO(110) epitaxially grown on a TiO(110) single crystal. The high quality of the IrO film grown using molecular-beam epitaxy affords the ability to extract the surface oxygen adsorption and its impact on the OER. By examining a series of electrolytes, we find that the adsorption energy changes linearly with pH, which we attribute to the electrified interfacial water. We support this hypothesis by showing that an electrolyte salt modification can lead to an adsorption energy shift. The dependence of the adsorption energy on pH has implications for the OER kinetics, but it is not the only factor; the dependence of the OER electrocatalysis on pH stipulates two OER mechanisms, one operating in acidic solution and another operating in alkaline solution. Our work points to the subtle adsorption-kinetics relationship in the OER and highlights the importance of the interfacial electrified interaction in electrocatalyst design.

We report the hydroxide (OH ad ) and oxide (O ad ) experimental electroadsorption free energies, their dependences on pH, and their correlations to the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) electrocatalysis on RuO 2 (110) surface. The Sabatier principle predicts that catalyst is most active when the intermediate stabilization is moderate, not too strong such that the bound intermediate disrupts the subsequent catalytic cycle, nor too weak such that the surface is ineffective. For decades, researchers have used this concept to rationalize the activity trend of many OER electrocatalysts including RuO 2 , which is among the state-of-the-art OER catalysts. In this article, we report an experimental assessment of the Sabatier principle by comparing the oxygen electroadsorption energy to the OER electrocatalysis for the first time on RuO 2 . We find that the OH ad and O ad electroadsorption energies on RuO 2 (110) depend on pH and obey the scaling relation. However, we did not observe a direct correlation between the OH ad and O ad electroadsorption energies and the OER activity in the comparative analysis that includes both RuO 2 (110) and IrO 2 (110). Our result raises a question of whether the Sabatier principle can describe highly active electrocatalysts, where the kinetic aspects may influence the electrocatalysis more strongly than the electroadsorption energy, which captures only the thermodynamics of the intermediates and not yet kinetics.

The use of renewable electricity to prepare materials and fuels from abundant molecules offers a tantalizing opportunity to address concerns over energy and materials sustainability. The oxygen evolution reaction (OER) is integral to nearly all material and fuel electrosyntheses. However, very little is known about the structural evolution of the OER electrocatalyst, especially the amorphous layer that forms from the crystalline structure. Here, we investigate the interfacial transformation of the SrIrO3 OER electrocatalyst. The SrIrO3 amorphization is initiated by the lattice oxygen redox, a step that allows Sr2+ to diffuse and O2− to reorganize the SrIrO3 structure. This activation turns SrIrO3 into a highly disordered Ir octahedral network with Ir square-planar motif. The final SryIrOx exhibits a greater degree of disorder than IrOx made from other processing methods. Our results demonstrate that the structural reorganization facilitated by coupled ionic diffusions is essential to the disordered structure of the SrIrO3 electrocatalyst.

Chlorine evolution reaction electrocatalysis on RuO 2 (110) and IrO 2 (110) grown using molecularbeam epitaxy

Electrochemical generation of oxygen via the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) is a key enabling step for many air-breathing electrochemical energy storage devices.

Controlling the structure of catalysts at the atomic level provides an opportunity to establish detailed understanding of the catalytic form-to-function and realize new, non-equilibrium catalytic structures. Here, advanced thin-film deposition is used to control the atomic structure of La2/3Sr1/3MnO3, a well-known catalyst for the oxygen reduction reaction. The surface and sub-surface is customized, whereas the overall composition and d-electron configuration of the oxide is kept constant. Although the addition of SrMnO3 benefits the oxygen reduction reaction via electronic structure and conductivity improvements, SrMnO3 can react with ambient air to reduce the surface site availability. Placing SrMnO3 in the sub-surface underneath a LaMnO3 overlayer allows the catalyst to maintain the surface site availability while benefiting from improved electronic effects. The results show the promise of advanced thin-film deposition for realizing atomically precise catalysts, in which the surface and sub-surface structure and stoichiometry are tailored for functionality, over controlling only bulk compositions.

Understanding how physicochemical properties of materials affect the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) has enormous scientific and technological implications for the OER electrocatalyst design. We present our investigation on the role of strain on the surface–oxygen interaction and the OER on well-defined single-termination SrIrO3 films. Our approach employs a combination of molecular-beam epitaxy, electrochemical characterizations, ambient-pressure X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, and density functional theory (DFT). We find that inplane compressive strain weakens the surface oxygen binding strength on SrIrO3; however, it has a negligible effect on the surface oxygen electroadsorption and the OER. We explain this observation, which goes against a commonly held intuition that a change in the surface oxygen binding strength should influence surface oxygen electroadsorption and OER by recognizing that the trend in surface oxygen adsorption measured in the gas phase does not account for the presence of water in the surface oxygen electroadsorption. Inclusions of surface water molecules allow DFT to qualitatively reproduce the electroadsorption trend, highlighting the importance of surface water in the surface–oxygen interaction. Our finding suggests that a commonly held assumption between surface oxygen binding strength (in vacuum, no water) and electroadsorption (requiring water) is not always a simple one-to-one description and calls for a more in-depth investigation on the structure of water at electrochemical interfaces.

Measuring and modulating charge-transfer processes at quantum dot interfaces are crucial steps in developing quantum dots as photocatalysts. In this work, cyclic voltammetry under illumination is demonstrated to measure the rate of photoinduced charge transfer from CdS quantum dots by directly probing the changing oxidation states of a library of molecular charge acceptors. The voltammetry data demonstrates the presence of long-lived electron donor states generated by native photodoping of the quantum dots as well as a positive correlation between driving force and rate of charge transfer. Changes to the voltammograms under illumination follow mechanistic predictions from classic zone diagrams and electrochemical modeling allows for measurement of the rate of productive electron transfer. Rate constants for photoinduced charge transfer on the order of 10 4 M -1 s -1 are calculated, which are distinct from the picosecond dynamics measured by conventional transient optical spectroscopy methods and are more closely connected to the quantum yield of light mediated chemical transformations.