Designing a catalyst is incredibly difficult - yet researchers at Tohoku University have successfully created a catalyst that is ranked as one of the best. Their catalyst greatly speeds up the oxygen evolution reaction (OER), which is a typically slow-paced reaction that desperately needs a boost so that it can be used practically in environmentally friendly technologies. This result combines low overpotential, long-term stability, and practicality into a catalyst that has a promising future helping us combat climate change.

The findings were published in Journal of the American Chemical Society on August 20, 2025.

What makes designing catalysts so difficult is obtaining the right balance of traits that speeds up the OER as much as possible while minimizing negative tradeoffs. For example, while more active sites are desirable, too many can compromise the composition and structure of the catalyst - making it unstable.

The key to their success was tungsten (W) and a general oxygen-vacancy anchoring strategy. Their method enabled the high-density and stable incorporation of W single atoms into transition-metal hydroxides/oxides. This stabilizes ultrathin structures, while also allowing for more active sites that speed up the reaction. This technique breaks the conventional trade-off between activity and stability.

"This research is important as it contributes to the development of more efficient and cost-effective catalysts for water electrolysis, a key process for producing clean hydrogen fuel." explains Professor Hao Li (WPI-AIMR).
This work provides a low-cost, robust, and efficient alternative that does not depend on expensive noble metals or unstable Fe-based systems. The research team says their next steps will further evaluate the long-term stability of the catalysts under industrially relevant current densities, and explore their performance in practical applications such as Anion Exchange Membrane Water Electrolysis and Zn-air batteries. These efforts will accelerate the translation of our findings into cost-effective, durable OER catalysts for renewable energy conversion and storage technologies.