Oxygen evolution

[1] Natural oxygen evolution is essential to the biological process of all complex life on Earth, as aerobic respiration has become the most important biochemical process of eukaryotic thermodynamics since eukaryotes evolved through symbiogenesis during the Proterozoic eon, and such consumption can only continue if oxygen is cyclically replenished by photosynthesis.

In industries, oxygen evolution reaction (OER) is a limiting factor in the process of generating molecular oxygen through chemical reactions such as water splitting and electrolysis, and improved OER electrocatalysis is the key to the advancement of a number of renewable energy technologies such as solar fuels, regenerative fuel cells and metal–air batteries.

[5] It was not until the end of the 18th century that Joseph Priestley accidentally discovered the ability of plants to "restore" air that had been "injured" by the burning of a candle.

Priestley's experiments were further evaluated by Jan Ingenhousz, a Dutch physician, who then showed that the "restoration" of air only worked while in the presence of light and green plant parts.

The point of water electrolysis is to store energy in the form of hydrogen gas, a clean-burning fuel.