The oxygen evolution reaction is an essential factor in many renewable energy technologies, such as water splitting, fuel cells, and metal–air batteries. Here we show a unique solution to improve the oxygen evolution reaction rate by adjusting the electrolyte composition via the introduction of hexadecyltrimethylammonium hydroxide into an alkaline electrolyte. The strong adsorption of hexadecyltrimethylammonium cations on the surface of electrocatalysts provides the increased absolute number of OH⁻ ions near the electrocatalyst surface, which effectively promotes the oxygen evolution reaction performance of electrocatalysts, such as Fe_1−yNi_yS₂@Fe_1−xNi_xOOH microplatelets and SrBaNi₂Fe₁₂O₂₂ powders. Meanwhile, we present an electrochemical conditioning approach to engineering the electrochemically active surface area of electrocatalysts, by which the resultant Fe_1−yNi_yS₂@Fe_1−xNi_xOOH microplatelets have a larger electrochemically active surface area after the electrochemical conditioning of the as-synthesized Fe_1−yNi_yS₂ microplatelets using ammonia borane than those obtained after the conventional electrochemical conditioning without ammonia borane, presumably due to the appropriate conversion rate of Fe_1−xNi_xOOH shells.

析氧反应是许多可再生能源技术的重要因素，例如水分解、燃料电池和金属空气电池。在这里，我们展示了一种独特的解决方案，通过将氢氧化十六烷基三甲基铵引入碱性电解液中来调整电解液组成，从而提高析氧反应速率。^{十六烷基三甲基铵阳离子在电催化剂表面的强烈吸附提供了电催化剂表面附近OH -}离子绝对数量的增加，这有效地促进了电催化剂的析氧反应性能，例如Fe _{1− y} Ni _y S ₂ @Fe _{1− x}镍_xOOH 微片和 SrBaNi ₂ Fe ₁₂ O ₂₂粉末。同时，我们提出了一种电化学调节方法来设计电催化剂的电化学活性表面积，由此产生的 Fe _{1− y} Ni _y S ₂ @Fe _{1− x} Ni _x OOH 微片在电化学调节后具有更大的电化学活性表面积合成后的 Fe _{1− y} Ni _y S ₂使用氨硼烷的微血小板比没有氨硼烷的常规电化学调节后获得的微血小板要高，这可能是由于 Fe _{1− x} Ni _x OOH 壳的适当转化率。