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Dihydrogen, the chemical fuel with the highest specific energy, is the ideal energy carrier for our transition to renewable energy society. The successful implementation of the so-called "Hydrogen Economy" relies on cost-effective, high performance production of H2 in water electrolyzers and its energy efficient consumption in fuel cells. While fuel cell technology have developed tremendously over the past 20 years, with fuel cell automobiles commercially available nowadays, such as the Toyota Mirai and the Honda Clarity, electrolyzer technology is still heavily based on cell and stack designs dating back 40 years ago. This proven H2 technology does not provide a cost effective solution for large scale deployment due extensive use of noble metals such as Ir and Pt that are required to drive both the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) and the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER), respectively. Together with kinetic limitations, the challenges facing water electrolyzers also include poor electrode stability and losses associated with limited electronic conductivity of metal oxides in the anodes. Overall, then, the design of materials for water electrolysis requires understanding the at atomic scale what are the fundamental limitations behind catalytic activity for both OER and HER, how does activity and stability are interconnected, and based on this knowledge, how can we effectively design new electrochemical interfaces and tailored 3D electrode morphology that will be at the core of the next generation water electrolyzer technology. |
