Accelerated
Characterization
of
Electrode-Electrolyte
Equilibration
Kevin
Kan,
[a]
Dan Guevarra,
[a]
Lan Zhou,
[a]
Ryan
J. R. Jones,
[a]
Yungchieh
Lai,
[a]
Matthias
Richter,
[a, b]
and John
M. Gregoire*
[a]
Operational
durability
is poorly
characterized
by traditional
(photo)electrocatalyst
discovery
workflows,
creating
a barrier
to
scale-up
and deployment.
Corrosion
is a prominent
degradation
mechanism
whose
thermodynamics
depend
on the concen-
tration
of corrosion
products
in electrolyte.
We present
an
automated
system
for characterizing
the equilibration
of
(photo)electrodes
with
dissolved
metals
in electrolyte
for a
given
electrode,
pH, and electrochemical
potential.
Automation
of electrode
selection,
electrolyte
preparation,
and electrolyte
aliquoting
enables
rapid
identification
of self-passivating
elec-
trodes
and estimation
of the equilibrium
dissolved
metals
concentrations.
The technique
is demonstrated
for metal
oxide
photoanodes
in alkaline
electrolyte,
where
BiVO
4
is found
to
continually
corrode,
in agreement
the literature.
An amorphous
Ni