The transition to a green hydrogen economy demands robust, scalable, and sustainable anodes for alkaline water electrolysis operating at industrial current densities (>1 A/cm2). However, achieving high activity and long-term stability under such conditions remains a formidable challenge with conventional catalysts. Here, we report a novel trimetallic CuNiFe anode fabricated through a rapid, single-step electrodeposition process at room temperature without organic additives. The catalyst exhibits an exceptionally low overpotential of <270 mV at 100 mA cm(-2) and operates stably for over 500 hours at 1 A cm(-2) in 30 wt% KOH. In a practical anion exchange membrane water electrolyzer (AEM-WE), the CuNiFe anode enables a current density of 2.5 A cm(-2) at only 2.5 V, with a voltage efficiency of 66.8%. Beyond water splitting, this anode also significantly enhances CO2 electrolysis, tripling the CO2 reduction current density and steering selectivity toward valuable multi-carbon products when paired with commercial copper cathodes. A cradle-to-gate life cycle assessment confirms that the CuNiFe anode reduces the carbon footprint by an order of magnitude and decreases environmental impacts by 40-60% across multiple categories compared to benchmark IrRuO2. Our work establishes a scalable, high-performance, and environmentally benign anode technology, paving the way for cost-effective electrochemical production of green hydrogen and carbon-neutral chemicals.
@article{arxiv.2602.08183,
title = {Boosting high-current alkaline water electrolysis and carbon dioxide reduction with novel CuNiFe-based anodes},
author = {Nusrat Rashid and Shurui Yang and Galyam Sanfo and Isabelle Ewing and Zahra Ibrahim Albu and Xinjuan Li and Tianhao Wu and Prajna Bhatt and Mathieu Prevot and Laurent Piccolo and Mahmoud Zendehdel and Robert G. Palgrave and Caterina Ducati and Mojtaba Abdi-Jalebi},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2602.08183},
year = {2026}
}