Metal Oxides for Hydrogen Evolution Reactions

Hydrogen energy is recognized as an important renewable energy source with zero carbon emission. Hydrogen production via water splitting is considered to be one of the most promising technologies in the future hydrogen economy. The critical challenge facing this technology is to explore low-cost, efficient, and stable electrocatalysts. As one of the most promising materials in the twenty-first century, metal oxides have attracted extensive attention from researchers all over the world because of their excellent physical and chemical properties. However, before 2015, the performance of metal oxides in hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) was not satisfactory. It is encouraging that in recent years, with the continuous breakthrough of researchers in the study of metal oxide, it has gradually become one of the most potential HER electrocatalytic materials. In this chapter, we mainly present the recent progresses made by metal oxides in electrocatalytic HER, and the related challenges and future prospects are proposed.