Along with market competition intensifying, accurately customizing the chemicals that meet the product demand has become the new trend of chemical engineering research. Hydrogen production by water electrolysis is an effective technology to store the intermittent electric power generated by large-scale renewable energy. To achieve high electricity-to-hydrogen conversion efficiency, efficient electrocatalysts for the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) and oxygen evolution reaction (OER) are essentially required. Electrode catalytic materials for water electrolysis have complicated chemical composition and multi-level structure, of which the chemical-physical properties and morphology structure are the main factors that determine the performance of electrolysis of water. In this paper, combining the research works on water electrolysis catalysts of our group, the recent advancements in the area of HER and OER catalysts with emphasis on catalyst design and engineering are reviewed. The catalyst design theories based on reaction mechanism of electrolytic water, catalyst design methodology (including nanoarchitecture, crystal face regulation, support combination, phase adjustment, heteroatom doping, alloying and surface modification) and their applications based on catalytic performance have been introduced in the light of product requirements. According to the development and requirement of chemical product engineering, the key scientific problems and development direction of the catalyst design and product engineering from molecular level to micro-nano structure scale as well as product synthesis and application are further provided.
Contents
1 Introduction
2 Reaction mechanism-oriented catalyst design theory
2.1 Reaction mechanism of electrolytic water
2.2 Reaction mechanism and catalyst design strategy of hydrogen evolution
2.3 Reaction mechanism and catalyst design strategy of oxygen evolution
3 Performance-oriented catalyst design methodology and application
3.1 Design principles of electrocatalyst
3.2 Design strategy based on geometric factor
3.3 Design strategy based on energy factor
4 Industrialization-oriented electrode construction design
4.1 Energy consumption of industrial water electrolysis
4.2 Technical requirements and construction design of industrial electrode
5 Conclusion and outlook