@article{Wang2026, 
author = {Bingxu Wang and Zefeng Teng and Chenxi Liu and Xu Liu and Rui Zhang and Fahao Sun and Yang Zhao and Guolang Zhou and Xiaobin Liu and Jianping Lai and Jingqi Chi and Lei Wang},
title = {Sulfur vacancies mediated high-valent cobalt for selective seawater oxidation},
year = {2026},
journal = {Nano Research},
volume = {19},
number = {2},
pages = {94908038},
keywords = {Lewis acid site, sulfur vacancy, oxygen evolution reaction (OER), alkaline seawater},
url = {https://www.sciopen.com/article/10.26599/NR.2025.94908038},
doi = {10.26599/NR.2025.94908038},
abstract = {Currently, seawater electrolysis is an effective technology for the large-scale production of green hydrogen, but the issues of poisoning active sites and catalyst corrosion caused by chloride ions in seawater urgently need to be addressed. This paper reports a non-precious metal cobalt sulfide with sulfur vacancies (v-Co9S8) catalyst, where the presence of sulfur vacancies can accelerate the formation of metal hydroxyl oxides and induce the generation of high-valent Co, enabling v-Co9S8 to exhibit long-term stability and excellent oxygen evolution reaction (OER) activity in seawater electrolysis. At the same time, the high-valent Co acts as a Lewis acid, providing stronger OH− adsorption and Cl− repulsion capabilities during the seawater OER process. Therefore, v-Co9S8 catalyst achieves an overpotential of only 420 mV at 1000 mA·cm−2 in alkaline seawater. At the same time, the assembled alkaline seawater anion exchange membrane (AEM) electrolyzer operates stably for over 130 h under the condition of 500 mA·cm−2. This work reports a mechanism where anion vacancy-induced metal sulfide reconstruction forms high-valent metals, which is expected to provide effective guidance for the development of seawater electrocatalysts.}
}