The review article "Structural variations of metal oxide-based electrocatalysts for oxygen evolution reaction", which was completed by the team led by Prof. CHEN Zhengfei of the School of Biological and Chemical Engineering, was published in Small Methods, a prestigious journal with an impact factor of 14.188. Its first author is GAO Ruiqin, assistant research fellow of the team, and co-authors include Associate Professor DENG Meng, assistant research fellow YAN Qing and Professor SHEN Haoyu.

The electrocatalytic reaction, capable of converting clean electric energy into easily stored chemical energy, is one of the ideal ways to realize the sustainable development of energy and green and efficient synthesis of chemicals. Electrocatalytic reactions can turn easily accessible raw materials such as water, carbon dioxide and nitrogen into high value-added products by making full use of the electric energy generated by renewables such as wind, solar and tidal energy. Since electrocatalytic oxygen evolution reaction (OER), an important electrode reaction in electrocatalytic and photoelectrochemical cells for a carbon-free energy cycle, typically happens under strong oxidizing or strong acid/alkaline conditions, the structure or composition of the catalyst itself often undergoes in-situ transformation. Further study of the relationship among the structure, activity and stability of catalysts is thus needed for more rational catalyst design. In the review, catalysts that can be easily synthesized and are relatively stable during the OER process are studied extensively, and structural variation types, the external and internal factors that influence the structural stability and general approaches to regulate the structural variation process are summarized. Additionally, the unresolved problems and challenges are presented in an attempt to get further insight into the mechanism of structural variations and establish a rational structure–catalysis relationship.

Small Methods, a monthly journal started by Wiley in 2017, focuses on significant advances in any and all methods applicable to nano- and microscale research from all areas of materials science, biomedical science, chemistry and physics. It publishes around 250 papers yearly.