Non-iridium-based electrocatalyst for durable acidic oxygen evolution reaction in proton exchange membrane water electrolysis

Zhen-Yu Wu; Feng-Yang Chen; Boyang Li; Shen-Wei Yu; Y Zou Finfrock; Debora Motta Meira; Qiang-Qiang Yan; Peng Zhu; Ming-Xi Chen; Tian-Wei Song; Zhouyang Yin; Hai-Wei Liang; Sen Zhang; Guofeng Wang; Haotian Wang

doi:10.1038/s41563-022-01380-5

Non-iridium-based electrocatalyst for durable acidic oxygen evolution reaction in proton exchange membrane water electrolysis

Nat Mater. 2023 Jan;22(1):100-108. doi: 10.1038/s41563-022-01380-5. Epub 2022 Oct 20.

Authors

Zhen-Yu Wu^#¹, Feng-Yang Chen^#¹, Boyang Li^#², Shen-Wei Yu³, Y Zou Finfrock⁴, Debora Motta Meira⁵, Qiang-Qiang Yan⁶, Peng Zhu¹, Ming-Xi Chen⁶, Tian-Wei Song⁶, Zhouyang Yin³, Hai-Wei Liang⁶, Sen Zhang⁷, Guofeng Wang⁸, Haotian Wang^{9

10

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Affiliations

¹ Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Rice University, Houston, TX, USA.
² Department of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, USA.
³ Department of Chemistry, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, USA.
⁴ Structural Biology Center, X-ray Science Division, Argonne National Laboratory, Lemont, IL, USA.
⁵ Canadian Light Source Inc., Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada.
⁶ Department of Chemistry, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, China.
⁷ Department of Chemistry, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, USA. sz3t@virginia.edu.
⁸ Department of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, USA. guw8@pitt.edu.
⁹ Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Rice University, Houston, TX, USA. htwang@rice.edu.
¹⁰ Department of Materials Science and NanoEngineering, Rice University, Houston, TX, USA. htwang@rice.edu.
¹¹ Department of Chemistry, Rice University, Houston, TX, USA. htwang@rice.edu.

^# Contributed equally.

PMID: 36266572
DOI: 10.1038/s41563-022-01380-5

Abstract

Iridium-based electrocatalysts remain the only practical anode catalysts for proton exchange membrane (PEM) water electrolysis, due to their excellent stability under acidic oxygen evolution reaction (OER), but are greatly limited by their high cost and low reserves. Here, we report a nickel-stabilized, ruthenium dioxide (Ni-RuO₂) catalyst, a promising alternative to iridium, with high activity and durability in acidic OER for PEM water electrolysis. While pristine RuO₂ showed poor acidic OER stability and degraded within a short period of continuous operation, the incorporation of Ni greatly stabilized the RuO₂ lattice and extended its durability by more than one order of magnitude. When applied to the anode of a PEM water electrolyser, our Ni-RuO₂ catalyst demonstrated >1,000 h stability under a water-splitting current of 200 mA cm^-2, suggesting potential for practical applications. Density functional theory studies, coupled with operando differential electrochemical mass spectroscopy analysis, confirmed the adsorbate-evolving mechanism on Ni-RuO₂, as well as the critical role of Ni dopants in stabilization of surface Ru and subsurface oxygen for improved OER durability.