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Wang Y, Wang J, Xu J, Qu X, Lin L, Zhao L, Liu Q, Wei Y, Li X, Ma Q, Zhang J, Fan W, Wu B, Kong X, Huang J, Wang Y, Ye Y, Feng Y, Zhang F. Fullerene-Buffered Electron Shuttle of Ru/RuO 2 with Switchable Active Sites Enables Robust and Efficient Bifunctional Alkaline Water Electrolysis. Angew Chem Int Ed Engl 2025; 64:e202503608. [PMID: 40192623 DOI: 10.1002/anie.202503608] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/13/2025] [Revised: 03/17/2025] [Accepted: 04/01/2025] [Indexed: 04/11/2025]
Abstract
Developing highly-efficient and robust bifunctional electrocatalyst for overall water splitting (OWS) is desirable, but it confronts long-term challenge in the local structural reconstruction of catalyst during the hydrogen and oxygen evolution reaction (HER and OER). As inspired by the stable acid-base buffer system in human life, here we construct an electron buffer system to well address the key issue of structural reconstruction, in which the charge-buffered fullerene renders Ru-based active species to be reversibly shuttled between Ru and RuO2 during HER and OER. Consequently, the as-prepared Ru-RuO2/C60- x catalyst exhibits overpotentials of merely 7 and 194 mV at 10 mA cm-2 for HER and OER in alkaline conditions, respectively. The photovoltaic-driven OWS device with a solar-to-hydrogen (STH) efficiency of 18.9% and an anion exchange membrane water electrolysis (AEMWE) system with good robustness was fabricated based on Ru-RuO2/C60- x. It was unraveled by in situ/operando spectroscopy and theoretical calculation that the significantly promoted performance of water electrolysis benefits from the fullerene-based electron shuttle effect on inhibition of structural reconstruction and electronic structural modulation of active sites as well as adsorption energy of the reaction intermediates. Our work may open an avenue to develop efficient and robust bifunctional electrocatalyst for promising industrial water electrolysis.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ying Wang
- School of Materials Science and Engineering, Shaanxi University of Science and Technology, Xi'an, 710021, China
| | - Jizhang Wang
- State Key Laboratory of Catalysis, Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Dalian National Laboratory for Clean Energy, Dalian, Liaoning, 116023, China
| | - Jilong Xu
- National Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, 230029, China
| | - Xianlin Qu
- Center for Microscopy and Analysis, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Nanjing, 211106, China
| | - Liping Lin
- Beijing Key Laboratory of Materials Utilization of Nonmetallic Minerals and Solid Wastes, National Laboratory of Mineral Materials, School of Materials Science and Technology, China University of Geosciences, Beijing, 100083, China
| | - Lu Zhao
- Beijing Key Laboratory of Materials Utilization of Nonmetallic Minerals and Solid Wastes, National Laboratory of Mineral Materials, School of Materials Science and Technology, China University of Geosciences, Beijing, 100083, China
| | - Qingqing Liu
- School of Materials Science and Engineering, Shaanxi University of Science and Technology, Xi'an, 710021, China
| | - Ying Wei
- School of Materials Science and Engineering, Shaanxi University of Science and Technology, Xi'an, 710021, China
| | - Xu Li
- School of Materials Science and Engineering, Shaanxi University of Science and Technology, Xi'an, 710021, China
| | - Qunzhi Ma
- School of Materials Science and Engineering, Shaanxi University of Science and Technology, Xi'an, 710021, China
| | - Jun Zhang
- School of Materials Science and Engineering, Shaanxi University of Science and Technology, Xi'an, 710021, China
| | - Wenjun Fan
- State Key Laboratory of Catalysis, Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Dalian National Laboratory for Clean Energy, Dalian, Liaoning, 116023, China
| | - Bin Wu
- School of Materials Science and Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, 639798, Singapore
| | - Xingang Kong
- School of Materials Science and Engineering, Shaanxi University of Science and Technology, Xi'an, 710021, China
| | - Jianfeng Huang
- School of Materials Science and Engineering, Shaanxi University of Science and Technology, Xi'an, 710021, China
| | - Yi Wang
- Center for Microscopy and Analysis, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Nanjing, 211106, China
| | - Yifan Ye
- National Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, 230029, China
| | - Yongqiang Feng
- School of Materials Science and Engineering, Shaanxi University of Science and Technology, Xi'an, 710021, China
| | - Fuxiang Zhang
- State Key Laboratory of Catalysis, Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Dalian National Laboratory for Clean Energy, Dalian, Liaoning, 116023, China
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