Electron-phonon coupling and coherent energy superposition induce spin-sensitive orbital degeneracy for enhanced acidic water oxidation.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 39837833.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/s41467-025-56315-w and PMC identifier 11751390.
- Licence recorded as CC BY-NC-ND.
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Abstract
The development of acid-stable water oxidation electrocatalysts is crucial for high-performance energy conversion devices. Different from traditional nanostructuring, here we employ an innovative microwave-mediated electron-phonon coupling technique to assemble specific Ru atomic patterns (instead of random Ru-particle depositions) on Mn<sub>0.99</sub>Cr<sub>0.01</sub>O<sub>2</sub> surfaces (Ru<sub>MW</sub>-Mn<sub>1-x</sub>Cr<sub>x</sub>O<sub>2</sub>) in RuCl<sub>3</sub> solution because hydrated Ru-ion complexes can be uniformly activated to replace some Mn sites at nearby Cr-dopants through microwave-triggered energy coherent superposition with molecular rotations and collisions. This selective rearrangement in Ru<sub>MW</sub>-Mn<sub>1-x</sub>Cr<sub>x</sub>O<sub>2</sub> with particular spin-differentiated polarizations can induce localized spin domain inversion from reversed to parallel direction, which makes Ru<sub>MW</sub>-Mn<sub>1-x</sub>Cr<sub>x</sub>O<sub>2</sub> demonstrate a high current density of 1.0 A cm<sup>-2</sup> at 1.88 V and over 300 h of stability in a proton exchange membrane water electrolyzer. The cost per gallon of gasoline equivalent of the hydrogen produced is only 43% of the 2026 target set by the U.S. Department of Energy, underscoring the economic significance of this nanotechnology.