Strain heterogeneity in RuO2 for efficient acidic oxygen evolution reaction in proton exchange membrane water electrolysis

Xuejie Cao, Licheng Miao, Wenqi Jia, Hongye Qin, Guangliang Lin, Rongpeng Ma, Ting Jin and Lifang Jiao ()
Additional contact information
Xuejie Cao: Nankai University
Licheng Miao: Nankai University
Wenqi Jia: Nankai University
Hongye Qin: Nankai University
Guangliang Lin: Nankai University
Rongpeng Ma: Nankai University
Ting Jin: Nankai University
Lifang Jiao: Nankai University

Nature Communications, 2025, vol. 16, issue 1, 1-11

Abstract: Abstract Developing acid-stable and active ruthenium dioxide (RuO2) catalysts for the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) is crucial for facilitating the large-scale applications of proton exchange membrane water electrolysis (PEMWE) for hydrogen production. Here, we propose a strain heterogeneity engineering strategy to simultaneously enhance the OER stability and activity of RuO2 electrocatalysts by introducing single-atom platinum (Pt). In a PEM water electrolyzer, the resultant Pt-RuO2 catalyst archives 3 A cm−2 at a low voltage of 1.791 V and maintains a stable performance for over 500 h at 500 mA cm−2. These performance metrics highlight its potential for practical applications. Experiments and calculations analyses confirm that the bulk tensile strain effectively stabilizes the entire structure of electrocatalysts, while the regions of compressive strain are identified as highly active catalytic sites, where the weakened binding energy of oxo-intermediates improves the catalytic activity.

Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-025-58570-3 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:16:y:2025:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-025-58570-3

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-025-58570-3

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().