Strong Oxide-Support Interaction over IrO₂ /V₂ O₅ for Efficient pH-Universal Water Splitting

Constructing strong oxide-support interaction (SOSI) is compelling for modulating the atomic configurations and electronic structures of supported catalysts. Herein, ultrafine iridium oxide nanoclusters (≈1 nm) are anchored on vanadium oxide support (IrO₂ /V₂ O₅ ) via SOSI. The as made catalyst, with a unique distorted IrO₂ structure, is discovered to significantly boost the performance for pH-universal oxygen evolution reaction (OER). Based on experimental results and theoretical calculations, the distorted IrO₂ active sites with flexible redox states in IrO₂ /V₂ O₅ server as electrophilic centers balance the adsorption of oxo-intermediates and effectively facilitate the process of OO coupling, eventually propelling the fast turnover of water oxidation. As a result, IrO₂ /V₂ O₅ demonstrates not only ultralow overpotentials at 10 mA cm^-2 (266 mV, pH = 0; 329 mV, pH = 7; 283 mV, pH = 14) for OER, but also high-performance overall water electrolysis over a broad pH range, with a potential of mere 1.50 V (pH = 0), 1.65 V (pH = 7) or 1.49 V (pH = 14) at 10 mA cm^-2 . In addition, SOSI can simultaneously secure the distorted active sites and thus remarkably improving the catalytic stability, making it a promising strategy to develop high-performance catalytic systems.