Catalytic electrodes play an indispensable role in electrochemical devices. As the pursuit of high activity dominates the research focus, limited attention was paid to the recycling technologies. Existing methods often only allow for recovering specific metallic substance without restoring the functionality of the electrode. Herein, we report a general, non-destructive method based on high-temperature pulse annealing to enable direct reuse of catalytic electrodes. The high temperature ensures complete decomposition of byproducts; meanwhile, the rapid annealing maintains the original physiochemical property, and thus the performance of the catalyst. Using the Li-air battery as a model system, we can regenerate a Ru-loaded electrode for 10 times after each cycling operation, thus extending its lifetime by nearly 10 folds. Our method can be readily applied to other electrochemical systems where catalytic electrodes are prone to deactivation by byproducts. This study paves a new way toward highly sustainable operation of electrochemical devices.

催化电极在电化学装置中起着不可或缺的作用。由于对高活性的追求主导了研究重点，因此对回收技术的关注很少。现有方法通常仅允许回收特定的金属物质而不恢复电极的功能。本文中，我们报告了一种基于高温脉冲退火的通用无损方法，可直接重复使用催化电极。高温确保副产物完全分解；同时，快速退火保持了原有的物理化学性质，从而保持了催化剂的性能。使用锂空气电池作为模型系统，我们可以在每次循环操作后再生10次Ru负载的电极，从而将其寿命延长了近10倍。我们的方法可以很容易地应用于其他电化学系统，在这些系统中催化电极很容易使副产物失活。这项研究为电化学设备的高度可持续运行开辟了一条新途径。