Dopants fixation of Ruthenium for boosting acidic oxygen evolution stability and activity

Abstract Designing highly durable and active electrocatalysts applied in polymer electrolyte membrane (PEM) electrolyzer for the oxygen evolution reaction remains a grand challenge due to the high dissolution of catalysts in acidic electrolyte. Hindering formation of oxygen vacancies by tuning the electronic structure of catalysts to improve the durability and activity in acidic electrolyte was theoretically effective but rarely reported. Herein we demonstrated rationally tuning electronic structure of RuO 2 with introducing W and Er, which significantly increased oxygen vacancy formation energy. The representative W 0.2 Er 0.1 Ru 0.7 O 2-δ required a super-low overpotential of 168 mV (10 mA cm − 2 )…

• NN
  National Natural Science Foundation of China

  Awards: 2018YFE0203400, 21776248, U1932148, 21676246, 2017YFE0127800, 21872174
• FR
  Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities

  Award: 2020XZZX002-07
• NS
  Natural Science Foundation of Zhejiang Province

  Awards: LR17B060003, No. LR17B060003