• Journal of Electrochemical Science and Technology
• /
• v.10 no.4
• /
• pp.402-407
• /
• 2019

Water electrolysis is known as the most sustainable and clean technology to produce hydrogen gas, however, a serious drawback to commercialize this technology is due to the slow kinetics in oxygen evolution reaction (OER). Thus, we report on the nanoporous IrNi thin film that reveals a markedly enhanced OER activity, which is attained through a selective etching of Os from the IrNiOs alloy thin film. Interestingly, electrochemical selective etching of Os leads to the formation of 3-dimensionally interconnected nanoporous structure providing a high electrochemical surface area (ECSA, 80.8 ㎠), which is 90 fold higher than a bulk Ir surface (0.9 ㎠). The overpotential at the nanoporous IrNi electrode is markedly lowered to be 289 mV at 10 mA cm^-2, compared with bulk Ir (375 mV at 10 mA cm^-2). The nanoporous IrNi prepared through the selective de-alloying of Os is promising as the anode material for a water electrolyzer.