Issue 9, 2016 - Chinese and foreign scholars completed electrocatalytic water splitting research

It
is reported that Zhang Bo, a young teacher of the Department of Physics of East China University of Science and Technology, has made a breakthrough
in the field of electrocatalytic water splitting.
The study was carried out
by researchers from the University of Toronto, East China University of Science and Technology, and Stanford University.
The researchers discovered a sol-gel synthesis method at room temperature, which broke through the barrier of phase separation due to the mismatch of different metal oxide lattices, and finally maintained the homogeneous dispersion of Fe, Co and W polymetallic oxides/hydroxides at the atomic scale, greatly improved the interaction between different metal atoms, and finally achieved three breakthroughs: the performance of oxygen-producing electrocatalysts was greatly improved, and the intrinsic mass ratio activity and TOFs were more than 3 times that of the best reported catalyst materials.
The conversion efficiency of electrical energy to chemical energy has been increased from 70% to more than
80%.

Industry experts believe that this material preparation technology solves the technical problems of multi-metal oxide phase separation and opens up a new channel
to promote the rapid development of energy conversion and storage.