Hydrogen production by water electrolysis has been regarded as a promising approach to wean away from sourcing energy through fossil fuels, as the produced hydrogen gas can be converted to electrical or thermal energy without any harmful byproducts. However, an efficient hydrogen production is restricted by the sluggish oxygen evolution reaction (OER) at the counter anode. Therefore, the development of new OER catalysts with high catalytic activities is crucial for high performance water splitting. Here, we report a novel sloughing method for the fabrication of an efficient OER catalyst on a stainless steel (SS) surface. A chalcogenide (Fe–S) overlayer generated by sulfurization on the SS surface is found to play a critical role as a precursor layer in the formation of an active surface during water oxidation. Interestingly, a newly exposed catalytic layer after sloughing off the Fe–S overlayer has a nanoporous structure with changed elemental composition, resulting in a significant improvement in OER performance with an overpotential value of 267 mV at a current density of 10 mA cm^–2 (in 1 M KOH). Our novel method for the preparation of OER catalyst provides an important insight into designing an efficient and stable electrocatalyst for the water splitting community.

中文翻译：

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剥落前体层以暴露出用于水氧化的活性不锈钢催化剂

通过水电解制氢已被认为是摆脱通过化石燃料获取能源的有前途的方法，因为所产生的氢气可以转化为电能或热能，而不会产生任何有害的副产物。但是，有效的氢气生产受到反阳极处缓慢的氧气析出反应（OER）的限制。因此，开发具有高催化活性的新型OER催化剂对于高效水分解至关重要。在这里，我们报告了一种在不锈钢（SS）表面上制造有效的OER催化剂的新型剥落方法。发现在SS表面硫化而产生的硫族化物（Fe–S）覆盖层在水氧化过程中作为活性表面形成过程中的前体层起着至关重要的作用。有趣的是，^–2（在1 M KOH中）。我们用于制备OER催化剂的新颖方法为为分水界设计高效稳定的电催化剂提供了重要的见识。