High-Throughput Screening for Acid-Stable Oxygen Evolution Electrocatalysts in the (Mn–Co–Ta–Sb)O_x Composition Space

Abstract

Solar generation of fuel is a promising future energy technology, and strong acidic conditions are highly desirable for integrated solar hydrogen generators. In particular, water splitting near pH 0 is attractive due to the availability of high theoretical efficiency, high performance hydrogen evolution catalysts, and robust ion exchange membranes. The lack of a stable, earth-abundant oxygen evolution catalyst inhibits deployment of this technology, and development of such a material is hampered by the strong anti-correlation between electrochemical stability and catalytic activity of non-precious metal oxides. High-throughput screening of mixed metal oxides offers a promising route to the identification of new stable catalysts and requires careful design of experiments to combine the concepts of rapid experimentation and long-term stability. By combining serial and parallel measurement techniques, we have created a high-throughput platform to assess the catalytic activity of material libraries in the as-prepared state and after 2 h of operation. By screening the entire (Mn–Co–Ta–Sb)O_x composition space, we observe that the compositions with highest initial activity comprised cobalt and manganese oxides, but combinations with antimony and tantalum offer improved stability. By combining the desired properties of catalytic activity and stability, the optimal composition regions are readily identified, demonstrating the success and fidelity of this novel high-throughput screening platform.