Inverse analysis-guided development of acid-tolerant nanoporous high-entropy alloy catalysts for enhanced water-splitting performance

High-entropy alloy (HEA) catalysts represent a promising frontier in catalysis research, offering enhanced catalytic efficiency due to their high elemental disorder, especially in water-splitting applications. The process of dealloying, which involves the selective removal of elements from an alloy, can produce a nanoporous structure and has shown potential in generating nanoporous ultra-HEAs containing up to 23 elements. This study emphasizes the development of acid-tolerant HEA catalysts through material-driven inverse analysis. By immersing an ultra-HEA containing 23 elements in acid and analyzing the remaining elements, an acid-tolerant HEA catalyst was developed. This catalyst, denoted as HEA8, contained eight elements (Au, Ir, Nb, Pt, Rh, Ru, Ta, and sacrificial Al). HEA8 demonstrated comparable catalytic activity and stability for both the hydrogen and oxygen evolution reactions under acidic conditions, outperforming commercial Pt and IrO₂ catalysts after successive modification.