UC Berkeley

Exploring robust catalysts for water oxidation in acidic electrolyte is challenging due to the limited material choice. Iridium (Ir) is the only active element with a high resistance to the acid corrosion during water electrolysis. However, Ir is rare, and its large-scale application could only be possible if the intrinsic activity of Ir could be greatly enhanced. Here, a pseudo-cubic SrCo0.9Ir0.1O3-δ perovskite, containing corner-shared IrO6 octahedrons, is designed. The Ir in the SrCo0.9Ir0.1O3-δ catalyst shows an extremely high intrinsic activity as reflected from its high turnover frequency, which is more than two orders of magnitude higher than that of IrO2. During the electrochemical cycling, a surface reconstruction, with Sr and Co leaching, over SrCo0.9Ir0.1O3-δ occurs. Such reconstructed surface region, likely contains a high amount of structural domains with corner-shared and under-coordinated IrOx octahedrons, is responsible for the observed high activity.