Increasing energy demands and environment awareness have promoted extensive research on the development of alternative energy conversion and storage technologies with high efficiency and environmental friendliness. Among them, electrochemical water splitting is very appealing, and is receiving more and more attention. Essential to the water splitting is the kinetically sluggish oxygen evolution reaction (OER), which demands efficient electrocatalysts. To make the water splitting process more energy-efficient and economical, developing high-performance noble metal-free catalysts, i.e., transition-metal-based nanomaterials, has aroused great attention due to their distinct advantages, such as relatively low cost, low toxicity, great flexibility in terms of structure and morphology, and satisfying electrochemical performance. We focus on the rational design of porous nanostructures with tunable composition and other favorable synergistic factors, aiming at increasing the number of the active sites and enhancing the reactivity of the active sites. Taking advantage of these favorable structural and compositional parameters, the resultant nanostructures exhibited excellent OER activity and stability, holding great promise in water splitting.

References:

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