Optimizing the Electronic Structure of Ruthenium Oxide by Neodymium Doping for Enhanced Acidic Oxygen Evolution Catalysis

摘要

It is a great challenge to design active and durable oxygen evolution reaction(OER) electrocatalysts for proton exchange membrane (PEM) electrolyzerdue to the high dissolution of electrocatalysts in acidic solution. Herein, theNd-doped RuO_2 (Nd_(0.1)RuO_x) is developed for enhanced oxygen evolution in0.5 m H_2SO_4 solution with an overpotential of 211 mV to achieve 10 mA cm~(?2).The theoretical calculation reveals that the improved activity of Nd_(0.1)RuO_x isdue to the moderate decrease of d-band center energy, which balances theadsorption and desorption of oxygen intermediates. Moreover, the formationof more high valence state Ru~(4+) in Nd_(0.1)RuO_x is beneficial to the chemical stabilityof Ru species during the OER process, indicating that the introductionof Nd can effectively suppress the dissolution of Ru in acidic electrolytes. Inaddition, the PEM electrolyzer using Nd_(0.1)RuO_x/CC as the anode can be operatedat 10 mA cm~(?2) stably for 50 h. This study sheds new light on the designof the OER catalysts in acid by engineering the electronic structure of RuO_2.