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RuO2 clusters derived from bulk SrRuO3: Robust catalyst for oxygen evolution reaction in acid

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Abstract

Developing highly efficient oxygen evolution reaction (OER) catalyst for the acidic corrosive operating conditions is a challenging task. Herein, we report the synthesis of uniform RuO2 clusters with ∼ 2 nm in size via electrochemical leaching of Sr from SrRuO3 ceramic in acid. The RuO2 clusters exhibit ultrahigh OER activity with overpotential of ∼ 160 mV at 10 mA·cmgeo−2 in 1.0 M HClO4 solution for 30-h testing. The extended X-ray absorption fine structure measurement reveals enlarged Jahn-Teller distortion of RuO octahedra in the RuO2 clusters compared to its bulk counterpart. Density function theory calculations show that the enhanced Jahn-Teller distortion can improve the intrinsic OER activity of RuO2.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 22022508, 51602143 and 11874036), Guangdong Natural Science Foundation for Distinguished Young Scholars (No. 2016A030306020), and the National Key Research and Development Program of China (No. 2017YFB0701600). We also thank the staffs from BL14W1 beamline of National Facility for Protein Science in Shanghai (NFPS) at Shanghai Synchrotron Radiation Facility, for assistance during data collection. Tianjin and Guangzhou Supercomputing Center is also acknowledged for allowing the use of computational resources including TIANHE-1 and TIANHE-2.

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  1. Muwei Ji, Xin Yang, Shengding Chang, Wenxing Chen, and Jin Wang contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Materials Science and Engineering, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen, 518060, China

    Muwei Ji & Jin Wang

  2. Institute of Low-Dimensional Materials Genome Initiative, College of Chemistry and Environmental Engineering of Shenzhen University, Shenzhen, 518060, China

    Muwei Ji & Caizhen Zhu

  3. Tsinghua Shenzhen International Graduate School, Tsinghua University, Shenzhen, 518055, China

    Xin Yang, Shengding Chang, Jin Wang, Yao Hu, Qian Deng, You Sun, Bo Li, Jingyu Xi & Jia Li

  4. Beijing Key Laboratory of Construction Tailorable Advanced Functional Materials and Green Applications, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing, 100081, China

    Wenxing Chen & Jiatao Zhang

  5. Materials Characterization and Preparation Center, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen, 518055, China

    Dongsheng He

  6. Department of Energy Engineering, Nagoya University, Furo-cho, Chikusa-ku, Nagoya, 464-8603, Japan

    Tomoaki Yamada

  7. Department of Chemistry, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084, China

    Hai Xiao & Yadong Li

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  1. Muwei Ji
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  2. Xin Yang
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Correspondence to Jin Wang, Jia Li or Yadong Li.

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Ji, M., Yang, X., Chang, S. et al. RuO2 clusters derived from bulk SrRuO3: Robust catalyst for oxygen evolution reaction in acid. Nano Res. 15, 1959–1965 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-021-3843-8

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