Iridium's hidden surface chemistry may change how hydrogen and chlorine are made

Iridium is a key component in many electrochemical technologies used for chemical transformations. These include producing hydrogen fuel from water, manufacturing chlorine from seawater for use as a disinfectant and extracting metals from their ores. Yet scientists still know surprisingly little about how this metal behaves at the very spot where those reactions unfold—the thin boundary where the surface of a solid electrode meets a water-based electrolyte.