Angew Chem Int Ed Engl. 2026 Jun 7:e8887957. doi: 10.1002/anie.8887957. Online ahead of print.
ABSTRACT
Developing efficient acidic oxygen evolution reaction (OER) catalysts is crucial for proton exchange membrane water electrolyzers (PEMWE). By mining a dataset of 718 reported catalysts, we statistically identified that multi-metal Ru-based oxides significantly outperform monometallic counterparts (median overpotential: 210 vs. 283 mV). Guided by this insight, microkinetic modeling screened 20 metal dopants, pinpointing vanadium as a promising candidate. The synthesized V-doped RuO2 (RV) exhibits an ultralow overpotential of 193 ± 1 mV at 10 mA cm-2 and robust stability for 3000 h. In a practical PEMWE device, RV achieves an industrial current density of 1 A cm-2 at only 1.725 V and sustains operation for 140 h at 200 mA cm-2. Mechanistic studies reveal that V-doping plays a dual role in RuO2. It induces Lewis acidic Ru sites to accelerate deprotonation kinetics, while simultaneously acting as a dynamic redox buffer to prevent Ru over-oxidation. This work shows how data- and theory-guided screening, combined with mechanistic investigation, can accelerate the discovery and understanding of high-performance RuO2-based acidic OER catalysts.
PMID:42251650 | DOI:10.1002/anie.8887957
