Recent Advancements and Future Prospects of Noble Metal-Based Heterogeneous Nanocatalysts for Oxygen Reduction and Hydrogen Evolution Reactions

Abstract

The oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) and hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) both are key electrochemical reactions for enabling next generation alternative-power supply technologies. Despite great merits, both of these reactions require robust electrocatalysts for lowering the overpotential and promoting their practical applications in energy conversion and storage devices. Although, noble metal-based catalysts (especially Pt-based catalysts) are at the forefront in boosting the ORR and HER kinetics, high cost, limited availability, and poor stability in harsh redox conditions make them unfit for scalable use. To this end, various strategies including downsizing the catalyst size, reducing the noble metal, and increasing metal utilization have been adopted to appropriately balance the performance and economic issues. This mini-review presents an overview of the current state of the technological advancements in noble metal-based heterogeneous nanocatalysts (NCs) for both ORR and HER applications. More specifically, we focused on establishing the structure–performance correlation.

Recent Advancement in Metal‐Organic Framework for Water Electrolysis: A Review

“…The HER mechanism depends on the three steps: Volmer reaction, Heyrovsky reaction, and Tafel reaction. These three steps indicate the following form of equations in both media, where M represents the active site of the catalyst surface and * represents the intermediate format [44,[134][135][136] Volmer reaction…”

“…In the acidic and basic media, the adsorption of the reactant onto the catalyst's surface is known as the Volmer step, the formation of an intermediate known as the Heyrovsky mechanism and the formation of hydrogen molecule known as the reaction. [44,[134][135][136] The overall water splitting reaction rate can be determined by Hydrogen adsorption free energy (ΔG H ). If the hydrogen molecule weekly binds to the catalyst surface, it limits the adsorption reaction mechanism (Volmer step).…”

Submillisecond Laser Annealing Induced Surface and Subsurface Restructuring of Cu–Ni–Pd Trimetallic Nanocatalyst Promotes Thermal CO2 Reduction

“…The exponentially growing carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) concentration in the atmosphere due to the massive energy consumption and dwindling fossil fuels reserves is the biggest threat to human beings in the current era . Although tremendous efforts have been devoted to the development of next-generation renewable energy sources, − CO 2 emission from the existing fossil fuels remains severe. Therefore, the development of techniques aimed at reducing the CO 2 emission in the atmosphere and limiting the negative impact of CO 2 emission on global climate change is an urgent need.…”

Effect of Germanium Incorporation on the Electrochemical Performance of Electrospun Fe2O3 Nanofibers-Based Anodes in Sodium-Ion Batteries

“…The sustainability of energy production systems represents a challenge in many contexts, including policy and scientific research. The large variety of initiatives undertaken in the latest years to improve efficiency in resource management has greatly boosted the field of energy production from renewable sources, gathering growing attention on electrochemical energy storage (EES) technologies and strongly promoting research in this area [4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14]. The development of cost-effective materials allowing improving power density, cyclability and round-trip efficiency is a key point both for more mature EES devices, such as redox flow batteries [15][16][17][18], and for the newer, developing ones, such as post-lithium batteries [18][19][20][21][22][23].…”