Al₂ Pt for Oxygen Evolution in Water Splitting: A Strategy for Creating Multifunctionality in Electrocatalysis

The production of hydrogen via water electrolysis is feasible only if effective and stable catalysts for the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) are available. Intermetallic compounds with well-defined crystal and electronic structures as well as particular chemical bonding features are suggested here to act as precursors for new composite materials with attractive catalytic properties. Al₂ Pt combines a characteristic inorganic crystal structure (anti-fluorite type) and a strongly polar chemical bonding with the advantage of elemental platinum in terms of stability against dissolution under OER conditions. We describe here the unforeseen performance of a surface nanocomposite architecture resulting from the self-organized transformation of the bulk intermetallic precursor Al₂ Pt in OER.