Recent Progress in the Development of Screening Methods to Identify Electrode Materials for the Oxygen Evolution Reaction

The oxygen evolution reaction (OER) limits the performance of proton-exchange membrane electrolyzers since substantial overpotentials of several hundred millivolts are required for the formation of gaseous oxygen at the anode to reach satisfying current densities. Theoreticians trace this to the occurrence of a linear scaling relationship between the OH and OOH adsorbates within the electrocatalytic OER cycle, which thermodynamically restrains this four-electron process. While commonly the breaking of this particular scaling relation is pursued as a promising strategy to enhance catalytic turnover, the present progress report summarizes recent trends in the screening of electrode materials for the OER aside this notion. This contains an extension of thermodynamic-based screening methods by including the kinetics, applied overpotential, and the electrochemical-step symmetry index into the analysis, enabling material screening within a unifying methodology, or material screening by molecular orbital principles and band theories. The combination of activity-based screening methods with a proper assessment of catalyst stability may aid the further search of electrode materials for the OER in the future.