Related Experiment Video
Updated: Oct 6, 2026
Photochemical Oxidative Growth of Iridium Oxide Nanoparticles on CdSe@CdS Nanorods
Published on: February 11, 2016
Ni─Nb Synergistic Regulation in RuO2 Nanocrystals Enables Efficient and Stable Acidic Water Oxidation
Jike Tang1, Haoyun Sheng2, Hongfei Sun1
1Institutes of Physical Science and Information Technology, Key Laboratory of Structure and Functional Regulation of Hybrid Materials (Ministry of Education), Anhui University, Hefei, P. R. China.
Abstract:
The activity-stability trade-off of RuO2-based catalysts in the acidic oxygen evolution reaction (OER) remains a major bottleneck for proton exchange membrane water electrolysis (PEMWE). Herein, a synergistic bimetallic codoping strategy was proposed to harness the complementary benefits of high-valence Nb and low-valence Ni dopants. The resulting NiNb-RuO2 catalyst exhibits outstanding OER performance in acidic media, delivering an ultralow overpotential of 157 mV at 10 mA cm-2 and stable operation for 200 h at 100 mA cm-2, outperforming most reported Ru-based catalysts. Remarkably, it also demonstrates excellent stability at a current density of 250 mA cm-2 over 200 h under PEMWE operations at 60 °C. Combined with density functional theory (DFT) calculations and in situ characterizations, a distinct Ni─Nb synergistic mechanism reveals that Nb suppresses lattice oxygen activation and mitigates structural degradation, while Ni regulates the electron-withdrawing capability of Ru sites to optimize the adsorption of *OOH intermediates, thereby accelerating OER kinetics through the AEM pathway. This work provides an effective strategy for simultaneously enhancing the activity and durability of RuO2-based catalysts toward practical PEMWE applications.
More Related Videos
Related Concept Videos
03:08Rate-Determining Steps
In a multistep reaction mechanism, one of the elementary steps progresses significantly slower than the others. This slowest step is called the rate-limiting step (or rate-determining step). A reaction cannot proceed faster than its slowest step, and hence, the rate-determining step limits the overall reaction rate.
The concept of rate-determining step can be understood from the analogy of a 4-lane freeway with a short-stretch of traffic-bottleneck caused due to...
01:21Radical Oxidation of Allylic and Benzylic Alcohols
02:36Regioselectivity and Stereochemistry of Hydroboration
Hydroboration proceeds in a concerted fashion with the attack of borane on the π bond, giving a cyclic four-centered transition state. The –BH2 group is bonded to the less substituted carbon and –H to the more substituted carbon. The concerted nature requires the simultaneous addition of –H and –BH2 across the same face of the alkene giving syn stereochemistry.
02:34Regioselectivity and Stereochemistry of Acid-Catalyzed Hydration
02:34Nucleophilic Substitution Reactions
In 1896, the German chemist Paul Walden discovered that he could interconvert pure enantiomeric (+) and (-) malic acids through a series of reactions. This conversion suggested the involvement of optical inversion during the substitution reaction. Further, in 1930, Sir Christopher Ingold described for the first time two different forms of nucleophilic substitution reactions, which are known as SN1 (nucleophilic substitution unimolecular) and SN2 (nucleophilic substitution...