Atomically engineered interfaces inducing bridging oxygen-mediated deprotonation for enhanced oxygen evolution in acidic conditions

The development of efficient and stable electrocatalysts for water oxidation in acidic media is vital for the commercialization of the proton exchange membrane electrolyzers. In this work, we successfully construct Ru–O–Ir atomic interfaces for acidic oxygen evolution reaction (OER). The catalysts achieve overpotentials as low as 167, 300, and 390 mV at 10, 500, and 1500 mA cm−2 in 0.5 M H2SO4, respectively, with the electrocatalyst showing robust stability for >1000 h of operation at 10 mA cm−2 and negligible degradation after 200,000 cyclic voltammetry cycles. Operando spectroelectrochemical measurements together with theoretical investigations reveal that the OER pathway over the Ru–O–Ir active site is near-optimal, where the bridging oxygen site of Ir–OBRI serves as the proton acceptor to accelerate proton transfer on an adjacent Ru centre, breaking the typical adsorption-dissociation linear scaling relationship on a single Ru site and thus enhancing OER activity. Here, we show that rational design of multiple active sites can break the activity/stability trade-off commonly encountered for OER catalysts, offering good approaches towards high-performance acidic OER catalysts. Efficient and stable electrocatalysts for acidic oxygen evolution are essential for proton exchange membrane electrolyzers. Here, the authors report Ru–O–Ir atomic interfaces that enable bridging oxygen-mediated deprotonation pathways, overcoming the activity/stability trade-off in acidic oxygen evolution.