Acid-based electrolysis has many advantages, but to achieve simultaneous activity and stability, commercial water oxidation catalysts rely on noble metal oxides that are expensive and too rare for the global scale. Here, earth-abundant tungsten was used as a structural metal to dilute the noble metal iridium content while maintaining high activity and stability in acid. Mixed-metal oxide catalysts were synthesized using rapid plasma oxidation in which the non-equilibrium reaction environment permitted better formation of a homogenous W_1−xIr_xO_3−δ phase. With an Ir metal content as low as 1%, a competitive and durable overpotential for oxygen evolution was achieved. Relative to high Ir content, low Ir compositions consisted of a more highly crystalline, phase-pure iridium polytungstate which was more catalytically active per Ir content. Moreover, the plasma-synthesized material had a sharp electrocatalytic improvement over an equivalent composition synthesized via standard thermal oxidation, demonstrating the value of non-equilibrium synthesis to find new catalysts.

中文翻译：

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一种低贵金属W¯¯ _{1- X}的Ir _X ö _{3- δ}水氧化电酸性介质经由快速血浆合成

酸基电解具有许多优点，但是要实现同时的活性和稳定性，商业用水氧化催化剂依赖于昂贵的贵金属氧化物，而这种贵金属在全球范围内都太罕见了。在此，富含稀土的钨被用作结构金属以稀释贵金属铱的含量，同时保持高的活性和在酸中的稳定性。混合金属氧化物催化剂使用快速等离子体氧化，其中非平衡反应环境允许更好形成均匀W的合成_{1- X}的Ir _X ö _{3- δ}阶段。Ir金属含量低至1％，可实现竞争性和持久性的放氧潜力。相对于高Ir含量，低Ir组成是由较高结晶度的纯相铱多钨酸盐组成的，它相对于Ir含量而言具有更高的催化活性。而且，等离子体合成的材料比通过标准热氧化合成的等效组成具有明显的电催化性能改善，证明了非平衡合成在寻找新催化剂方面的价值。