Engineering Conductive Ti ₄ O ₇ Networks for Efficient and Durable Low‐Ir‐Loading Anode in Proton Exchange Membrane Water Electrolysis

Abstract Reducing iridium (Ir) loading in the anode catalyst layer (ACL) of proton exchange membrane water electrolysis (PEMWE) remains a key challenge for scaling up green hydrogen production. However, low‐Ir‐loading often results in poor electrical/protonic connectivity and mechanical integrity, causing limited performance and durability. Herein, an ionomer targeting strategy (ITS) is proposed to minimize the insulating perfluorosulfonic acid ionomer coverage on conductive Ti ₄ O ₇ additives while guiding the ionomer selectively wrapping onto IrO ₂ catalyst. This approach increases the in‐plane electrical conductivity by 63.8% and reduces the proton transport resistance by 81.0% versus the conventional ACL. The PEM electrolyzer with optimized ACL achieves a platinum group metal (PGM) utilization of 0.072 g _PGM kW ⁻¹ at a PGM loading of 0.3 mg cm ⁻² (both electrodes combined), outperforming the U.S. Department of Energy 2026 technical target of 0.1 g _PGM kW ⁻¹ . This represents the first report of achieving this benchmark for PEMWE. Crucially, the ACL exhibits a voltage decay rate of 75 µV h ⁻¹ at 1.5 A cm ⁻² for 1600 h, ≈20‐fold lower than the conventional ACL. The ITS enables a selective ionomer wrapping mechanism in the ACLs, providing a practical and scalable pathway to an efficient, durable, and low‐Ir‐loading PEMWE system.