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Updated: Aug 6, 2026

Tuning Oxide Properties by Oxygen Vacancy Control During Growth and Annealing
Published on: June 9, 2023
Enabling stable lattice oxygen mechanism in RuO2 via low-electronegativity Cs doping for enhanced acidic water
Lingxiao Li1, Fangqing Wang1, Tianpeng Zhang1
1School of Materials Science and Engineering, Shandong University of Technology, Zibo 255049, PR China; Shandong Key Laboratory of Functional-Structural Integrated Ceramics, Zibo 255049, PR China; Discipline and Technology Center for High Temperature Functional Ceramics, Zibo 255049, PR China.
Abstract:
RuO2 undergoes overoxidation at high oxidation potentials, involving the lattice oxygen oxidation mechanism (LOM) that leads to severe Ru dissolution. The current state-of-the-art strategy suppresses the kinetically favored LOM pathway by triggering conventional adsorbate desorption mechanisms, but this approach sacrifices activity for enhanced stability. To address this challenge, this work reports a Cs-doped RuO2 (Cs0.05-RuO2) catalyst. The low electronegativity of Cs enables electron transfer to Ru via Cs-O-Ru bridges, achieving high LOM activity while avoiding Ru overoxidation and thus maintaining high stability. Cs0.05-RuO2 exhibits a low overpotential of 169 mV@10 mA cm-2 under acidic conditions. Furthermore, the Cs0.05-RuO2||Pt/C electrode pair operates stably for ∼1800 h@500 mA cm-2 in an anion-exchange membrane water electrolysis cell. Advanced in situ spectroscopic techniques and density functional theory calculations confirm that the introduction of low-electronegativity Cs strengthens the RuO bond and suppresses the overoxidation of Ru.
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