Advanced Electrocatalytic Materials for Water Electrolysis and Fuel Cells

Modern society is facing serious consequences of using fossil fuels as the main energy source, some of which are already irreversible and will be only more and more dramatic in the future. Hydrogen economy is the concept established 50 years ago and depicts a scenario where energy systems and global economy are built around hydrogen instead of fossils resulting in a decarbonized energy chain. In this context, electrochemistry is expected to play a pivotal role in electrochemical energy conversion devices, such as water electrolysers (WEs) and fuel cells (FCs) which are capable of closing the loop between carbon-free hydrogen production and utilization. Therefore, design and implementation of advanced electrocatalytic materials for reactions taking place in WEs and FCs is of utmost importance for widespread application of these green technologies.

Although the advantages of application of WEs and FCs are clear, the widespread implementation of these devices is still challenging. The main bottleneck is the usage of catalytic materials for efficient running of the electrochemical reactions in these devices. State-of-the-art catalysts for acidic proton exchange membrane WEs and FCs are currently based on platinum group metals (PGMs) and their alloys, in particular Pt and Ir. Limited supplies and high price of PGMs challenges their sustainable usage which can be provided by lowering of the amount of PGMs in catalysts, while maintaining or even improving the catalytic performance. There are several strategies to achieve this, including alloying PGMs with non-precious metals, using advanced support materials to boost catalytic performance of the active PGM sites, and using PGMs in the form of single atoms to maximize the utilization and trigger new chemistry. Another attractive research direction is to develop non-PGM catalysts that are able to match PGM-like performance. PGM-free catalysts are rather significant challenge and hot topic in the electrocatalysis community where significant breakthroughs are yet to come, especially in the case of alkaline anion exchange membrane FCs and WEs. It is believed that only joint efforts of researchers working on both PGM and non-PGM catalysts will provide the knowledge to accelerate the commercialization of these devices. Therefore, this research topic welcomes contributions on both advanced PGM and non-PGM catalysts for electrochemical reactions taking place in WEs and FCs.

The scope of the proposed topic is to gather in one place both theoretical and experimental studies showing advancements in the development of high-performing electrocatalytic materials for reactions in WEs and FCs, namely hydrogen evolution/oxidation and oxygen evolution/reduction. These include, but are not limited to:
• Fundamental studies on model catalysts
• Synthesis and characterization of advanced nano-particulated and single atom catalysts
• Reports on using novel support materials

The focus should be on novel electrocatalysts with enhanced activity, stability and selectivity for above mentioned reactions. We welcome manuscripts ranging from original research to reviews, mini reviews, and perspectives.