It is an ongoing challenge to develop bifunctional electrocatalysts that are highly active and able to operate in the harsh alkaline electrolyte used in commercial electrolysers. In addition, commercial units cannot be directly integrated with intermittent renewable energy sources due to rapid start up and shut down conditions which rapidly deteriorates the anode and cathode materials. Here, a very simple electrochemical conditioning approach followed by galvanic replacement with gold nanoparticles at a level of 0.5 at.% is demonstrated to transform stainless steel (AISI 316) into an electrocatalyst that facilitates overall water splitting while showing excellent tolerance to reverse polarity conditions. The electrocatalyst is not only very active for the OER with a low Tafel slope value of 29 mV dec−1, but also shows excellent performance for the HER where high current densities of 100 mA cm−2 can be achieved. In a two-cell configuration, current densities greater than 150mA cm−2 can be achieved for overall water splitting in 6 M NaOH at a cell voltage of only 2 V indicating potential commercial applicability. Additionally, the electrodes demonstrate high tolerance to reversing the polarity of the cell over prolonged periods of up to 216 h where equal performance is maintained.

中文翻译：

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将不锈钢 316 转化为耐极性转换的双功能水分解电催化剂

开发高活性且能够在商业电解槽中使用的苛刻碱性电解质中运行的双功能电催化剂是一项持续的挑战。此外，由于快速启动和关闭条件会迅速劣化阳极和阴极材料，因此商业装置无法直接与间歇性可再生能源集成。在这里，证明了一种非常简单的电化学调节方法，然后用 0.5 at.% 的金纳米粒子进行电流置换，将不锈钢 (AISI 316) 转化为促进整体水分解的电催化剂，同时显示出对反极性条件的出色耐受性。电催化剂不仅对 OER 非常活跃，具有 29 mV dec-1 的低 Tafel 斜率值，但也表现出优异的 HER 性能，可以实现 100 mA cm-2 的高电流密度。在双电池配置中，在电池电压仅为 2 V 的情况下，在 6 M NaOH 中整体水分解可以实现大于 150mA cm-2 的电流密度，表明潜在的商业适用性。此外，在保持相同性能的情况下，电极在长达 216 小时的长时间内表现出对反转电池极性的高耐受性。