Research Projects

The development of efficient and cost-effective electrocatalysts for the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) is crucial for advancing green energy technologies. While various transition metal-based electrocatalysts have shown promising OER activity, they still lack the efficiency and economic viability required for commercial applications. Consequently, noble metal oxides like IrO₂ and RuO₂ continue to dominate as commercial OER catalysts, which, despite their high activity, suffer from drawbacks including high cost and limited long-term stability. Thus, the search for superior OER electrocatalysts continues. High-entropy oxides (HEOs), with their configurationally stabilized multinary structures, present a promising platform to address this longstanding challenge. HEOs gained significant attention recently as it provides a versatile platform with compositional tunability, cocktail or synergistic effect, enhanced stability, and diverse active sites, making them superior to conventional electrocatalysts for multi-electron, multi-pathway reactions. However, despite significant advancements in the HEOs, the fundamental understanding of the active phases, lattice dynamics, and structure-activity relationships during OER remains inadequate, hindering their further development toward commercial viability. This project proposes the design and development of novel high-entropy oxide electrocatalysts for OER in alkaline media, combined with in-depth operando characterization to elucidate their dynamic behavior under realistic reaction conditions. By leveraging advanced in-situ/operando techniques such as Raman spectroscopy, FTIR and DEMS, the project aims to capture real-time structural and electronic transformations of these complex oxides during catalysis. Another key hypothesis of this project is that less active yet abundant transition metals, such as Mn, Fe, can exhibit enhanced OER activity when incorporated into a high-entropy oxide framework alongside small amounts of well-known OER active elements. This synergistic interplay, arising from electronic and structural modifications within the HEO matrix, could lead to higher atomic utilization of noble or rare metals, thus improving catalytic efficiency and lowering cost simultaneously. To validate this hypothesis, this project will systematically synthesize HEO-based catalysts with strategic elemental combinations and employ advanced in-situ/operando characterization techniques (e.g., Raman, FTIR) to unravel the real-time structural and electronic evolution during OER. The project aims to create a design framework for developing low-cost, high-efficiency OER catalysts by establishing direct structure-property relationships. The outcomes of this research will not only contribute fundamental insights into entropy-driven catalysis but also advance the development of affordable materials for clean energy applications, aligned with India’s National Hydrogen Mission and global sustainable energy goals.