Customized reaction route for ruthenium oxide towards stabilized water oxidation in high-performance PEM electrolyzers

Zhaoping Shi; Ji Li; Yibo Wang; Shiwei Liu; Jianbing Zhu; Jiahao Yang; Xian Wang; Jing Ni; Zheng Jiang; Lijuan Zhang; Ying Wang; Changpeng Liu; Wei Xing; Junjie Ge

doi:10.1038/s41467-023-36380-9

Customized reaction route for ruthenium oxide towards stabilized water oxidation in high-performance PEM electrolyzers

Nat Commun. 2023 Feb 15;14(1):843. doi: 10.1038/s41467-023-36380-9.

Authors

Zhaoping Shi^{1

2}, Ji Li^{3

4}, Yibo Wang^{1

2}, Shiwei Liu¹, Jianbing Zhu^{1

2}, Jiahao Yang^{1

2}, Xian Wang^{1

2}, Jing Ni^{1

2}, Zheng Jiang^{3

5}, Lijuan Zhang^{3

5}, Ying Wang⁶, Changpeng Liu^{1

2}, Wei Xing^{7

8}, Junjie Ge^{9

10}

Affiliations

¹ State Key Laboratory of Electroanalytic Chemistry, Jilin Province Key Laboratory of Low Carbon Chemistry Power, Changchun Institute of Applied Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Changchun, 130022, China.
² School of Applied Chemistry and Engineering, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, 230026, China.
³ Shanghai Institute of Applied Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, 201204, China.
⁴ University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China.
⁵ Shanghai Synchrotron Radiation Facility, Zhangjiang National Lab, Shanghai Advanced Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Science, Shanghai, 201204, China.
⁶ State Key Laboratory of Rare Earth Resource Utilization, Changchun Institute of Applied Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Changchun, 130022, China. ywang_2012@ciac.ac.cn.
⁷ State Key Laboratory of Electroanalytic Chemistry, Jilin Province Key Laboratory of Low Carbon Chemistry Power, Changchun Institute of Applied Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Changchun, 130022, China. xingwei@ciac.ac.cn.
⁸ School of Applied Chemistry and Engineering, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, 230026, China. xingwei@ciac.ac.cn.
⁹ State Key Laboratory of Electroanalytic Chemistry, Jilin Province Key Laboratory of Low Carbon Chemistry Power, Changchun Institute of Applied Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Changchun, 130022, China. gejj@ciac.ac.cn.
¹⁰ School of Applied Chemistry and Engineering, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, 230026, China. gejj@ciac.ac.cn.

Abstract

The poor stability of Ru-based acidic oxygen evolution (OER) electrocatalysts has greatly hampered their application in polymer electrolyte membrane electrolyzers (PEMWEs). Traditional understanding of performance degradation centered on influence of bias fails in describing the stability trend, calling for deep dive into the essential origin of inactivation. Here we uncover the decisive role of reaction route (including catalytic mechanism and intermediates binding strength) on operational stability of Ru-based catalysts. Using MRuO_x (M = Ce⁴⁺, Sn⁴⁺, Ru⁴⁺, Cr⁴⁺) solid solution as structure model, we find the reaction route, thereby stability, can be customized by controlling the Ru charge. The screened SnRuO_x thus exhibits orders of magnitude lifespan extension. A scalable PEMWE single cell using SnRuO_x anode conveys an ever-smallest degradation rate of 53 μV h^-1 during a 1300 h operation at 1 A cm^-2.

Grants and funding

21875243/National Natural Science Foundation of China (National Science Foundation of China)