Defect Engineering of RuO<sub>2</sub> Aerogel for Efficient Acidic Water Oxidation
Xiang Han, Mengyuan Jin, Tingting Chen, Ting Chou, Jiadong Chen, Shun Wang, Yun Yang, Juan Wang, Huile Jin
Abstract
The development of renewable energy conversion devices heavily relies on the design of high-performance electrocatalysts for water electrolysis systems. In this study, a Se-doped RuO 2 aerogel (Se-RuO 2 aerogel) with abundant defects is prepared as an excellent oxygen evolution reaction (OER) electrocatalyst in acidic media. The Se-RuO 2 aerogel exhibits a remarkably low overpotential of 166 mV at a current density of 10 mA cm –2 and long-term stability of up to 48 h. Concurrently, detailed in situ experiments demonstrate that the Se-RuO 2 aerogel can maintain excellent stability during the OER process, for their reaction path follows a more stable adsorption evolution mechanism. Therefore, it can operate for 100 h at a current density of 100 mA cm –2 when assembled as an anode catalyst in a polymer electrolyte membrane (PEM) electrolyzer. This work provides a new vision for the design of high-performance electrocatalysts based on aerogel with defect engineering.