Experimental oxygen redox energetics

Abstract

Catalyst Design Electrochemical conversion involving water and oxygen molecules is one of the most important directions for future clean and renewable energy production and storage. However, existing technologies require improvement of oxygen evolution and reduction kinetics and stability of catalysts. Theoretical design of heterogeneous catalysts for oxygen electrocatalysis usually is based on first-principles analysis of elementary steps in oxygen surface redox on well-defined catalytic surfaces. Tao et al. propose an alternative methodology to extract the energetics of surface oxygen redox from kinetic modeling of electrochemical experimental data, which provides mechanistic understanding of oxygen electrocatalysis under real working conditions. The authors also provide an example of how the proposed methodology can be used to predict optimized oxygen reduction reaction activity with manganese oxides. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 141 , 13803 (2019).