Understanding the active sites and reaction mechanism of water oxidation on metal oxides

Solar energy irradiating the Earth's surface exceeds human energy consumption by four orders of magnitude and the key to alleviating the global energy crisis lies in efficiently harnessing it. An ideal means of storing surplus energy from solar is to convert it to hydrogen using proton exchange membrane water electrolyzers, which are amenable to integration with solar devices due to their high performance under fluctuating power input. Water oxidation to molecular oxygen is the most energy intensive part of the water splitting process, limiting the overall efficiency of water splitting devices. Rutile Ruthenium Dioxide (RuO₂) is a gold standard catalyst for water oxidation in acidic solutions. It can also undergo fast surface redox reactions in the electrochemically stable potential window of water, making it an ideal material for electrochemical capacitors that can charge and discharge in a much shorter time scale than batteries.

Name thesis:degree_name

Doctoral

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Mechanical Engineering

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2019

Author dc:creator

• Rao, Reshma R.

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Yang Shao-Horn.

• Mechanical Engineering.

Statement dc:rights

• MIT theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed, downloaded, or printed from this source but further reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/122141

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/122141