Chemists uncover the true active surface of nickel catalysts

A research team at Ulm University has shown that the active surface of nickel electrodes used for alkaline water electrolysis is not nickel oxyhydroxide, as previously thought, but nickel dioxide. This discovery clarifies the true structure of the catalyst that helps produce climate‑neutral hydrogen. The results were published in the journal Nature Catalysis.

Nickel is a promising, cost-effective and robust catalyst for alkaline water electrolysis—a key technology for the climate-neutral production of hydrogen. However, the actual structure of the active surface of such nickel electrodes under reaction conditions had not yet been conclusively determined. A research team at Ulm University has now refuted a decades-old assumption: The catalytically active surface does not consist of nickel oxyhydroxide (NiOOH), as was previously widely assumed, but is nickel dioxide (NiO₂). The findings have been published in the journal Nature Catalysis.

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