Tuning hydrogen binding modes within RuO2 lattice by proton and electron co-doping for active and stable acidic oxygen evolution

Solid polymer electrolyzer (SPE), which directly uses pure water as electrolyte, holds great promise for green hydrogen production, yet developing a durable and active electrocatalyst for a proton-rich anode remains a bottleneck issue owing to the high catalyst dissolution under polarization potential. Here, proton and electron co-doping was employed to construct an Ru-O-H···O bond within RuO2 lattice, and the hydrogen binding modes not only engineered the electronic interaction between Ru and O atoms but also formed a hydrogen bond, which was demonstrated to be an effective way to increase the electrocatalytic activity and stabilize the lattice oxygen. The intrinsic activity of representative 75-H-RuO2 loaded on a glassy carbon electrode was almost ten times that of the pristine one, only requiring an overpotential of 200 mV (@10 mA cm−2). Moreover, it demonstrated ideal stability (@0.5 A cm−2) in the SPE device.