Zhang Xun, Dong Aiyi, Gao Haiyang, Wang Guanyingze, Yin Yan, Che Li, Gao Honglin
Transportation Engineering College, Dalian Maritime University, Dalian 116026, China.
School of Science, Dalian Maritime University, Dalian 116026, China.
Nanomaterials (Basel). 2025 Aug 28;15(17):1319. doi: 10.3390/nano15171319.
In the water splitting process for sustainable hydrogen production, the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) stands as one of the pivotal half-reactions. Nevertheless, the sluggish four-electron transfer process inherent to OER has emerged as a kinetic bottleneck that impedes water electrolysis. To address this challenge, researchers have been devoting substantial efforts to developing high-performance OER electrocatalysts. Currently, iridium (Ir)-based or ruthenium (Ru)-based oxides are widely acknowledged as benchmark catalysts for OER. However, their scarcity and exorbitant cost render large-scale applications impractical. In recent years, transition metal carbides have garnered extensive attention in the realm of OER electrocatalysts, exhibiting tremendous application prospects owing to their advantages of low cost, high catalytic activity, and excellent stability. This review briefly introduces the fundamental characteristics and synthesis methodologies of transition metal carbides, summarizes the recent research advances in their application as OER catalysts, elaborates on the modification strategies and catalytic mechanisms of transition metal carbide nanomaterials, and finally discusses the challenges confronted by these metal carbides as well as the future research directions.
在用于可持续制氢的水分解过程中，析氧反应（OER）是关键的半反应之一。然而，OER固有的缓慢四电子转移过程已成为阻碍水电解的动力学瓶颈。为应对这一挑战，研究人员一直在大力致力于开发高性能的OER电催化剂。目前，铱（Ir）基或钌（Ru）基氧化物被广泛认为是OER的基准催化剂。然而，它们的稀缺性和高昂成本使得大规模应用不切实际。近年来，过渡金属碳化物在OER电催化剂领域受到了广泛关注，由于其成本低、催化活性高和稳定性好等优点，展现出巨大的应用前景。本文综述简要介绍了过渡金属碳化物的基本特性和合成方法，总结了其作为OER催化剂应用的最新研究进展，阐述了过渡金属碳化物纳米材料的改性策略和催化机制，最后讨论了这些金属碳化物面临的挑战以及未来的研究方向。
