The excellent performance of oxygen evolution reaction on stainless steel electrodes by halogen oxyacid salts etching

• Stainless steel electrodes via etching were prepared for oxygen evolution reaction (OER). • The pitting of etching regulates electrode morphology, composition and OER performance. • The KBrO 3 -induced electrode presents excellent OER activity in the electrolysis. • The electrode shows high durability in 100 h electrolysis at an ampere-level current. Development of low-cost, efficient, and stable electrocatalysts for oxygen evolution reaction (OER) is the key issue for a large-scale hydrogen production. Recently, in-situ corrosion of stainless steel seems to be a feasible technique to obtain an efficient OER electrode, while a wide variety of corrosive agents often lead to significant difference in catalytic performance. Herein, we synthesized Ni-Fe based nanomaterials with OER activity through a facile one-step hydrothermal etching method of stainless steel mesh, and investigated the influence of three halogen oxyacid salts (KClO 3 , KBrO 3 , KIO 3 ) on water oxidation performance. It was found that the reduction product of oxyacid salts has the pitting effect on the stainless steel, which plays an important role in regulating the morphology and composition of the nanomaterials. The KBrO 3 -derived electrode shows optimal OER performance, giving the small overpotential of 228 and 270 mV at 10 and 100 mA cm −2 respectively, a low Tafel slope of 36.2 mV dec −1 , as well as durable stability in the long-time electrolysis. This work builds an internal relationship between the corrosive agents and the OER performance of the as-prepared electrodes, providing promising strategies and research foundations for further improving the OER performance and optimizing the structure of stainless steel electrodes.