Approaches for measuring the surface areas of metal oxide electrocatalysts for determining their intrinsic electrocatalytic activity
Top Cited Papers
- 12 April 2019
- journal article
- review article
- Published by Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) in Chemical Society Reviews
- Vol. 48 (9), 2518-2534
- https://doi.org/10.1039/c8cs00848e
Abstract
Great attention has been recently drawn to metal oxide electrocatalysts for electrocatalysis-based energy storage and conversion devices. To find the optimal electrocatalyst, a prerequisite is an activity metric that reasonably evaluates the intrinsic electrocatalytic activity of a particular catalyst. The intrinsic activity is commonly defined as the specific activity which is the current per unit catalyst surface area. Thus, the precise assessment of intrinsic activity highly depends on the reliable measurement of catalyst surface area, which calls for the knowledge of experimental approaches for determining the surface areas of metal oxide electrocatalysts. This tutorial review aims to summarize and analyze the approaches for measuring the surface areas of metal oxide electrocatalysts for evaluating and comparing their intrinsic electrocatalytic activities. We start by comparing the popular metrics for activity estimation and highlighting the importance of surface-area-normalized activity (i.e. specific activity) for intrinsic chemistry analysis. Second, we provide some general guidelines for experimentally measuring the electrochemically active surface area (ECSA). Third, we review the methods for the surface area measurement of metal oxide electrocatalysts. The detailed procedure for each method is explicitly described to provide a step-by-step manual that guides researchers to perform the measurement; the rationales and uncertainties for each method are discussed to help readers justify the reliable assessment of surface area. Next, we give our recommendations on selecting a rational experimental approach for the surface area measurement of a particular metal oxide electrocatalyst. Lastly, we discuss the future challenges of ECSA measurement and present an exemplary novel ECSA technique.Keywords
Funding Information
- Ministry of Education - Singapore (MOE2017-T2-1-009)
This publication has 50 references indexed in Scilit:
- Measurement Techniques for the Study of Thin Film Heterogeneous Water Oxidation ElectrocatalystsChemistry of Materials, 2016
- Electrochemical Methods of Real Surface Area Determination of Noble Metal Electrodes – an OverviewInternational Journal of Electrochemical Science, 2016
- Benchmarking nanoparticulate metal oxide electrocatalysts for the alkaline water oxidation reactionJournal of Materials Chemistry A, 2015
- Recent Insights into Manganese Oxides in Catalyzing Oxygen Reduction KineticsACS Catalysis, 2015
- Toward the rational design of non-precious transition metal oxides for oxygen electrocatalysisEnergy & Environmental Science, 2015
- Correlating the hydrogen evolution reaction activity in alkaline electrolytes with the hydrogen binding energy on monometallic surfacesEnergy & Environmental Science, 2013
- Pt5Gd as a Highly Active and Stable Catalyst for Oxygen ElectroreductionJournal of the American Chemical Society, 2012
- Determination of the Platinum and Ruthenium Surface Areas in Platinum−Ruthenium Alloy Electrocatalysts by Underpotential Deposition of Copper. I. Unsupported CatalystsThe Journal of Physical Chemistry B, 2002
- Characterization of High‐Surface‐Area Electrocatalysts Using a Rotating Disk Electrode ConfigurationJournal of the Electrochemical Society, 1998
- Real surface area measurements in electrochemistryPublished by Walter de Gruyter GmbH ,1991