Boosting Water Splitting: A New Take on Ru-Based Catalysts

Scientists are always on the hunt for better ways to split water into hydrogen and oxygen. This time, they've designed special Ru-B-Cr parts within RuO₂ nanofibers to make the Ru sites more active. This overcomes the hurdles of RuO₂ catalysts, which usually aren't very good at producing hydrogen and aren't stable enough for oxygen production. The new Cr, B-doped RuO₂ nanofibers showed impressive results. They needed only 205 mV to start hydrogen production and 379 mV for oxygen, both at a high current density of 1 A cm⁻². Plus, they lasted a really long time - 1000 hours for hydrogen and 188 hours for oxygen. When put together, these nanofibers made a great acidic electrolyzer with high hydrogen production efficiency and durability. Experiments and computer simulations showed that the Ru-B-Cr parts changed the atom setup and how reaction intermediates stick and let go, leading to top-notch hydrogen and oxygen production.