Lecture
Van Marum Colloquium: Surface Transformation and Activity in Bifunctional Oxygen Electrocatalysts
- Dr. Priya Jain (Ruhr University Bochum)
- Date
- Friday 20 March 2026
- Time
- Location
-
Gorlaeus Building
Einsteinweg 55
2333 CC Leiden - Room
- CE.0.18
Abstract
Electrocatalytic activity in bifunctional oxygen reduction and oxygen evolution catalysts is governed by a combination of surface structure, dynamic composition, and the electrochemical interface, rather than by bulk catalyst composition alone. The work presented in this talk shows how systematic control of composition, coordination environment, defect chemistry, and metal-support interactions in complex heterogeneous catalysts, including Prussian Blue Analogues and multicomponent metallic alloys, enables direct correlations between surface reconstruction, adsorption energetics, and electrocatalytic performance. Under electrochemical operation, these catalysts undergo reconstruction, selective leaching, and oxidation-state changes, leading to the formation of catalytically active surface motifs that directly determine ORR and OER activity and stability. At the same time, in chemically complex systems it remains difficult to isolate how much of the observed behavior originates from intrinsic surface chemistry and how much is controlled by the electrode-electrolyte interface. To obtain a clearer mechanistic picture of interfacial effects, fundamental studies can be proposed using Pt3Ni in which the influence of metal composition on pH-dependent interfacial properties and PZC can be examined in a controlled manner, providing mechanistic insight into how the nature of the metal governs electrochemical response.
References
- P. Jain, P. Hosseini, A. Kotska, E. Budiyanto, P. Diehl, M. Muhler, H. Tuyuz, D. Wu, T. Li, Faraday Discuss., 2025, Accepted Manuscript.
- P. Jain, P. P. Ingole, J. Phys. Chem. Letters, 2024, 15, 4828-2837.
- L. Shen, A. Goyal, X. Chen, M. T. M. Koper, J. Phys. Chem. Lett., 2024, 15, 2911–2915.