Amorphous material can result in highly roughened electrode coupled with enhanced specific activity due to higher degree of under-saturation in comparison to the crystalline material. The synthesis of amorphous materials is generally done by high temperature heating followed by rapid quenching which is undesirable in two ways-they are highly energy intensive and generally result in lower surface area. To address these issues, we propose a generalized room temperature approach wherein Lithium insertion/de-insertion into the crystal lattice induces high stresses resulting in the collapse of the crystal structure giving rise to high surface area amorphous materials. Also, this method provides an utility for materials recovered from lithium ion battery. The crystalline->amorphous transformation can be induced by other electrochemical processes such as multiple electrochemical cycles of hydrogenation-dehydrogenation over the electrocatalyst. We have compared the suitability of above mentioned processes for preparation of better oxygen evolution reaction (OER) electrocatalyst of amorphous Co₃O₄. The specific activity of OER, ion intercalation induced amorphization of Co₃O₄ is superior than crystalline Co₃O₄ whereas hydrogenation-dehydrogenation induced amorphization of Co₃O₄ has activity between crystalline Co₃O₄ and ion intercalation induced amorphization of Co₃O₄. Further, higher bulk-oxygen vacancies are created through ion intercalation process leading to higher conductivity and reducing overall charge-transport resistance through electrocatalyst. On the other hand, hydrogenation-dehydrogenation induced amorphization is restricted to surface only. The above study demonstrates the utility of multicycle ion intercalation over hydrogenation-dehydrogenation technique for obtaining amorphous OER electrocatalysts.

Keywords: Co₃O₄, oxygen evolution reaction, Lithiation/delithiation, hydrogenation-dehydrogenation, Ion intercalation, oxygen vacancies.