A Co-Doped Nanorod-like RuO2 Electrocatalyst with Abundant Oxygen Vacancies for Acidic Water Oxidation

Yuanyuan Tian; Shuo Wang; Ever Velasco; Yueping Yang; Lujie Cao; Linjuan Zhang; Xing Li; Yichao Lin; Qiuju Zhang; Liang Chen

doi:10.1016/j.isci.2019.100756

A Co-Doped Nanorod-like RuO₂ Electrocatalyst with Abundant Oxygen Vacancies for Acidic Water Oxidation

iScience. 2020 Jan 24;23(1):100756. doi: 10.1016/j.isci.2019.100756. Epub 2019 Dec 4.

Authors

Yuanyuan Tian¹, Shuo Wang², Ever Velasco³, Yueping Yang⁴, Lujie Cao⁵, Linjuan Zhang⁶, Xing Li⁷, Yichao Lin⁸, Qiuju Zhang⁹, Liang Chen¹⁰

Affiliations

¹ Ningbo Institute of Materials Technology and Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Ningbo, Zhejiang 315201, P.R. China; School of Materials Science and Chemical Engineering, Ningbo University, Ningbo 315211, P. R. China.
² Ningbo Institute of Materials Technology and Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Ningbo, Zhejiang 315201, P.R. China.
³ Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, Piscataway, NJ 08854, USA.
⁴ State Grid Ningbo Electric Power Supply Company, Ningbo, Zhejiang 315000, P.R. China.
⁵ Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen 518055, P. R. China.
⁶ Shanghai Institute of Applied Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 201800, P.R. China.
⁷ School of Materials Science and Chemical Engineering, Ningbo University, Ningbo 315211, P. R. China.
⁸ Ningbo Institute of Materials Technology and Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Ningbo, Zhejiang 315201, P.R. China; University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, P. R. China. Electronic address: yclin@nimte.ac.cn.
⁹ Ningbo Institute of Materials Technology and Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Ningbo, Zhejiang 315201, P.R. China; University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, P. R. China. Electronic address: zhangqj@nimte.ac.cn.
¹⁰ Ningbo Institute of Materials Technology and Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Ningbo, Zhejiang 315201, P.R. China; University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, P. R. China. Electronic address: chenliang@nimte.ac.cn.

Abstract

Active and highly stable electrocatalysts for oxygen evolution reaction (OER) in acidic media are currently in high demand as a cleaner alternative to the combustion of fossil fuels. Herein, we report a Co-doped nanorod-like RuO₂ electrocatalyst with an abundance of oxygen vacancies achieved through the facile, one-step annealing of a Ru-exchanged ZIF-67 derivative. The compound exhibits ultra-high OER performance in acidic media, with a low overpotential of 169 mV at 10 mA cm^-2 while maintaining excellent activity, even when exposed to a 50-h galvanostatic stability test at a constant current of 10 mA cm^-2. The dramatic enhancement in OER performance is mainly attributed to the abundance of oxygen vacancies and modulated electronic structure of the Co-doped RuO₂ that rely on a vacancy-related lattice oxygen oxidation mechanism (LOM) rather than adsorbate evolution reaction mechanism (AEM), as revealed and supported by experimental characterizations as well as density functional theory (DFT) calculations.

Keywords: Catalysis; Electrochemical Energy Production; Nanomaterials.