Catalyst Stability Considerations for Electrochemical Energy Conversion with Non-Noble Metals: Do We Measure on What We Synthesized?

Working with non-noble electrocatalysts poses significant experimental challenges to unambiguously evaluate their intrinsic activity and characterize their working state and possible structural and compositional changes before, during, and after activity testing. Despite the vast number of studies on non-noble catalysts, these issues are still not addressed sufficiently-hindering significant progress in the field. In this Perspective, we present pitfalls and challenges when working with non-noble-metal-based electrocatalysts from catalyst synthesis, over electrochemical testing, to post-reaction characterization, and suggest potential solutions to overcome these difficulties. We believe that reliable measurements of the intrinsic activity of non-noble-metal-based electrocatalysts will greatly enhance our understanding of electrocatalysis in general and is a prerequisite for developing more active and selective electrocatalysts.