Abstract

The increasing demand for energy coupled with the effects of greenhouse gases from fossil fuels has triggered extensive research on the development of sustainable and renewable energy sources. Toward this aim, hydrogen has enormous potential to replace fossils fuel as a clean and alternative fuel of the future. Moreover, the commonly used electrochemical water splitting is emerging as a very hopeful solution to generate hydrogen in the production of carbon-free and environmentally friendly green energy. Water is a widely available resource on Earth and is the key source of hydrogen, and thus the main component in the water splitting process. Catalysts play an important role in the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) and the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) in water oxidation. In this chapter we detail the synthesis and characterization of electrocatalysts, and the water splitting applications thereof.