Activity and stability trends of perovskite oxides for oxygen evolution catalysis at neutral pH

Perovskite oxides (ABO3) have been studied extensively to promote the kinetics of the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) in alkaline electrolytes. However, developing highly active catalysts for OER at near-neutral pH is desirable for many photoelectrochemical/electrochemical devices. In this paper, we systematically studied the activity and stability of well-known perovskite oxides for OER at pH 7. Previous activity descriptors established for perovskite oxides at pH 13, such as having an eg occupancy close to unity or having an O p-band center close to Fermi level, were shown to scale with OER activity at pH 7. Stability was a greater challenge at pH 7 than at pH 13, where two different modes of instability were identified from combined transmission electron microscopy and density functional theory analyses. Perovskites with O p-band close to Fermi level showed leaching of A-site atoms and surface amorphization under all overpotentials examined at pH 7, while those with O p-band far from Fermi level were stable under low OER current/potential but became unstable at high current/potential accompanied by leaching of B-site atoms. Therefore, efforts are needed to enhance the activity and stability of perovskites against A-site or B-site loss if used at neutral pH.