Modulating oxygen-vacancy of IrOx@Ti via controllably partial pressures by magnetron sputtering for enhanced electrocatalytic oxygen evolution reaction

Great attention has been focused on the IrOx with enriched oxygen vacancies as the exceptional oxygen evolution reaction (OER) catalyst due to its remarkable stability and catalytic performance during operations. The systematical quantify of the oxygen vacancies on the OER performance of the IrOx has not been previously reported to the best of our knowledge. Herein, series IrOx catalyst films with various oxygen vacancies concentrations were fabricated on the titanium felt surface (IrOx@Ti) through magnetron sputtering by adjusting the oxygen partial pressure during the deposition process. In addition, the iridium loading significantly reduced to 0.06 mg cm-2 comparing to the traditional commercial membrane electrode (more than 2 mg cm-2). Electrochemical experiments and electrolytic cell testing demonstrated that the IrOx@Ti possesses excellent catalytic performance and stability under a current density of 1 A cm-2. This research offers valuable insights into the correlation between oxygen vacancy levels and the high OER performance of IrOx catalysts, as well as guidelines for the design and synthesis of high-performance OER catalysts.