Efficient and sustainable water electrolysis achieved by excess electron reservoir enabling charge replenishment to catalysts

Suppressing the oxidation of active-Ir(III) in IrO x catalysts is highly desirable to realize an efficient and durable oxygen evolution reaction in water electrolysis. Although charge replenishment from supports can be effective in preventing the oxidation of IrO x catalysts, most supports have inherently limited charge transfer capability. Here, we demonstrate that an excess electron reservoir, which is a charged oxygen species, incorporated in antimony-doped tin oxide supports can effectively control the Ir oxidation states by boosting the charge donations to IrO x catalysts. Both computational and experimental analyses reveal that the promoted charge transfer driven by excess electron reservoir is the key parameter for stabilizing the active-Ir(III) in IrO x catalysts. When used in a polymer electrolyte membrane water electrolyzer, Ir catalyst on excess electron reservoir incorporated support exhibited 75 times higher mass activity than commercial nanoparticle-based catalysts and outstanding long-term stability for 250 h with a marginal degradation under a water-splitting current of 1 A cm −2 . Moreover, Ir-specific power (74.8 kW g −1 ) indicates its remarkable potential for realizing gigawatt-scale H 2 production for the first time.