Iridium oxide (IrO x )-based materials are the most suitable oxygen evolution reaction (OER) catalysts for water electrolysis in acidic media. There is a strong demand from industry for improved performance and reduction of the Ir amount. Here, we report a composite catalyst, IrO x −TiO 2 −Ti (ITOT), with a high concentration of active OH species and mixed valence IrO x on its surface. We have discovered that the obtained ITOT catalyst shows an outstanding OER activity (1.43 V vs RHE at 10 mA cm −2 ) in acidic media. Moreover, no apparent potential increase was observed even after a chronopotentiometry test at 10 mA cm −2 for 100 h and cyclic voltammetry for 700 cycles. We proposed a detailed OER mechanism on the basis of the analysis of the in situ electrochemical X-ray absorption near-edge structure (XANES) and extended X-ray absorption fine structure (EXAFS) measurements as well as density functional theory (DFT) calculations. All together, we have concluded that controllable Ir-valence and the high OH concentration in the catalyst is crucial for the obtained high OER activity.

In recent years, solid oxide fuel cells fueled with ammonia have been attracting intensive attention. In this work, ammonia fuel was supplied to the Ni/yttria-stabilized zirconia (YSZ) cermet anode at 600 and 700 °C, and the change of electrochemical performance and microstructure under the open-circuit state was studied in detail. The influence of ammonia exposure on the microstructure of Ni was also investigated by using Ni/YSZ powder and Ni film deposited on a YSZ disk. The obtained results demonstrated that Ni in the cermet anode was partially nitrided under an ammonia atmosphere, which considerably roughened the Ni surface. Moreover, the destruction of the anode support layer was confirmed for the anode-supported cell upon the temperature cycling test between 600 and 700 °C because of the nitriding phenomenon of Ni, resulting in severe performance degradation.

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