Porous Materials as Highly Efficient Electrocatalysts for the Oxygen Evolution Reaction

Carbon-neutral hydrogen has potential to alleviate the energy crisis and ease environmental problems. Water electrolysis is a sustainable way for large-scale hydrogen production when electricity is generated from renewable energy resources. The key challenge in water splitting is the sluggish kinetics of the oxygen evolution reaction (OER). Thus, it is important and necessary to develop highly efficient electrocatalysts in a cost-effective way for OER. Porous materials have proven to be versatile in catalysis due to their large surface area, the fast mass diffusion, and the buffer ability of volume change. Herein, we summarize the recent progress of representative methodologies for the synthesis of porous materials toward electrocatalytic OER. The materials discussed in this Review include the cheap transition-metal-based (Co, Ni, and Fe) and metal-free porous materials. This Review sheds light on the different strategies to construct catalysts with porous structures to facilitate OER.