Recent advances in transition metal borides for electrocatalytic oxygen evolution reaction

The clean and renewable energy carrier alternative to current fossil fuels, such as hydrogen (H-2) and oxygen (O-2), is crucial and challenging due to economic and environmental concerns. Electrochemical water splitting is a straightforward route to produce H-2 and O-2, which requires highly active electrocatalysts to get over sluggish reaction kinetics and improve the reaction rates of H-2 and O-2 at low overpotentials. Transition metal borides (TMBs) have been proven as promising alternatives to replace precious metal catalysts. Here, we focus on the various synthetic strategies for the construction and functionalization of TMBs, then introduce the recent research progresses of TMBs for oxygen evolution reaction (OER). Finally, the existing problems in current research and future research directions of electrocatalysts are given as perspectives. (C) 2020 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.