Peer-reviewed veterinary case report
How oxygen bubbles show active spots on stainless steel mesh
By Qu X et al.·2026·School of Chemical Engineering and Technology, China·View original on Europe PMC →
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Original publication title: Visualizing and quantifying local OER activity on stainless-steel mesh via gas bubble dynamics.
Plain-English summary
This research focuses on finding better and cheaper materials for a chemical reaction that produces oxygen, which is important for clean energy technologies like water splitting. The study looks at stainless steel mesh as a potential alternative to expensive metal catalysts, but it was unclear how well different parts of the mesh worked. By observing how oxygen bubbles form and grow on the mesh, the researchers found that certain curved areas of the mesh worked much better because they were under pressure, which helped the chemical reaction happen more easily. They also discovered that this pressure helped change nickel hydroxide into a more effective form for the reaction at lower energy levels. Overall, the study shows that understanding how bubbles behave can help us measure how well these materials work and highlights the importance of pressure in making them more effective.
Abstract
The development of efficient, low-cost catalysts for the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) is critical for advancing sustainable energy technologies such as water electrolysis. Stainless steel mesh (SSM) is a promising alternative to precious metal catalysts, yet the spatial distribution of active sites on its surface remains poorly understood. Here, we introduce an in situ strategy that leverages oxygen bubble evolution dynamics to visualize and quantitatively probe localized OER activity on SSM model electrodes in real time. Time-resolved optical tracking of gas bubbles enables direct determination of local reaction rates, revealing that curved regions of the mesh, which experience compressive strain, exhibit markedly enhanced OER activity characterized by accelerated bubble nucleation and growth. In situ electrochemical Raman mapping reveals that these compressive domains promote the phase transition of nickel hydroxide to catalytically active nickel oxyhydroxide at lower potentials, attributed to a reduced energy barrier arising from the lattice contraction accompanying this phase change. This work establishes gas bubble dynamics as a powerful, spatially resolved tool for quantifying intrinsic electrocatalytic activity and uncovers compressive strain as a key factor governing active phase formation on stainless steel electrodes.
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Search related cases →Original publication on Europe PMC: https://europepmc.org/article/MED/41924813