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Updated: Nov 23, 2025

Atomically Defined Templates for Epitaxial Growth of Complex Oxide Thin Films
Published on: December 4, 2014
Dynamically Stable Active Sites from Surface Evolution of Perovskite Materials during the Oxygen Evolution Reaction
Pietro P Lopes1, Dong Young Chung1, Xue Rui2
1Materials Science Division, Argonne National Laboratory, Lemont, Illinois 60439, United States.
Abstract:
Perovskite oxides are an important class of oxygen evolution reaction (OER) catalysts in alkaline media, despite the elusive nature of their active sites. Here, we demonstrate that the origin of the OER activity in a La1-SrCoO3 model perovskite arises from a thin surface layer of Co hydr(oxy)oxide (CoOH) that interacts with trace-level Fe species present in the electrolyte, creating dynamically stable active sites. Generation of the hydr(oxy)oxide layer is a consequence of a surface evolution process driven by the A-site dissolution and O-vacancy creation. In turn, this imparts a 10-fold improvement in stability against Co dissolution and a 3-fold increase in the activity-stability factor for CoOH/LSCO when compared to nanoscale Co-hydr(oxy)oxides clusters. Our results suggest new design rules for active and stable perovskite oxide-based OER materials.
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