Exploring strain engineering of epitaxial oxide membranes to enhance oxygen evolution electrocatalysis

Complex oxides are increasingly recognized as promising alternatives to precious metals in the field of electrocatalysis due to their high catalytic activity and tailorable properties. The correlation between the structure of these oxides and their catalytic activity suggests that strain engineering could be an effective strategy for enhancement of the catalytic effect. However, current methods for strain engineering are limited to epitaxial growth on selected number of substrates with specific lattice parameters. We aim to develop a versatile, cheap and easily accessible approach for tuning the strain of epitaxial oxide membranes and the objective of this proposal is to explore how the strain influences the electrocatalytic performance of these membranes, specifically during oxygen evolution reaction (OER). We will use a specific designed electrocatalysis cell to study in operando the strain in epitaxial oxide membranes by simply bending or stretching the membranes.

在电催化领域，复杂氧化物（complex oxides）凭借其高催化活性与可调控的理化性质，正日益被视为贵金属极具潜力的替代材料。这类氧化物的结构与其催化活性之间的内在关联表明，应变工程（strain engineering）可作为提升其催化效能的有效策略。然而，当前的应变工程手段仅局限于在具备特定晶格参数的选定基底上实现外延生长（epitaxial growth）。本研究旨在开发一种通用、廉价且易于获取的方法，用以调控外延氧化物薄膜的应变；本项目的目标则是探究应变如何影响此类薄膜的电催化性能，尤其是在析氧反应（oxygen evolution reaction, OER）过程中的表现。我们将采用定制设计的电催化池，通过简单弯折或拉伸薄膜的方式，原位在线（in operando）研究外延氧化物薄膜中的应变情况。