Effectiveness of strain and dopants on breaking the activity-stability trade-off of RuO<sub>2</sub> acidic oxygen evolution electrocatalysts.
basic_science · Level V
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- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 39962051.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/s41467-025-56638-8 and PMC identifier 11832934.
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Abstract
Ruthenium dioxide electrocatalysts for acidic oxygen evolution reaction suffer from mediocre activity and rather instability induced by high ruthenium-oxygen covalency. Here, the tensile strained strontium and tantalum codoped ruthenium dioxide nanocatalysts are synthesized via a molten salt-assisted quenching strategy. The tensile strained spacially elongates the ruthenium-oxygen bond and reduces covalency, thereby inhibiting the lattice oxygen participation and structural decomposition. The synergistic electronic modulations among strontium-tantalum-ruthenium groups both optimize deprotonation on oxygen sites and intermediates absorption on ruthenium sites, lowering the reaction energy barrier. Those result in a well-balanced activity-stability profile, confirmed by comprehensive experimental and theoretical analyses. Our strained electrode demonstrates an overpotential of 166 mV at 10 mA cm<sup>-2</sup> in 0.5 M H<sub>2</sub>SO<sub>4</sub> and an order of magnitude higher S-number, indicating comparable stability compared to bare catalyst. It exhibits negligible degradation rates within the long-term operation of single cell and PEM electrolyzer. This study elucidates the effectiveness of tensile strain and strategic doping in enhancing the activity and stability of ruthenium-based catalysts for acidic oxygen evolution reactions.