Insights of pristine stainless steel mesh oxygen evolution reaction in diverse concentrations of potassium hydroxide

Stainless steel, a cost-effective Fe, Ni, and Cr alloy, is a promising electrode material for green electrochemical energy conversion systems. Accordingly, this study investigated the effect of potassium hydroxide concentration (KOH; 0.1, 1.0, and 6.0 M) on the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) activity of pristine stainless-steel mesh (pre-SSM) used for the different concentrations denoted by SSM-0.1, SSM-1.0, and SSM-6.0). In particular, SSM-6.0 showed satisfactory OER activity with a low overpotential of 223 mV, and a Tafel slope of 44 mV dec-1 was required to achieve a current density of 10 mA cm-2. This remarkable performance of the electrode resulted from the 6.0 M KOH solution having a considerably higher theoretical specific conductivity (0.6266 S cm -1) than the 1.0 M (0.2153 S cm-1) and 0.1 M (0.0241 S cm-1) KOH solutions.