Chiral electrocatalysts eclipse water splitting metrics through spin control

Abstract

AbstractContinual progress in technologies that rely on water splitting are often hampered by the slow kinetics associated with the oxygen evolution reaction (OER). Here, we show that the efficiency of top-performing catalysts can be improved, beyond typical thermodynamic considerations, through control over reaction intermediate spin alignment during electrolysis. Spin alignment is achieved using the chiral induced spin selectivity (CISS) effect and the improvement in OER manifests as an increase in Faradaic efficiency, decrease in reaction overpotential, and change in the rate determining step for chiral nanocatalysts over compositionally analogous achiral nanocatalysts. These studies illustrate that a defined spatial orientation of the nanocatalysts is not necessary to exhibit spin selectivity and therefore represent a viable platform for employing the transformative role of chirality in other reaction pathways and processes.