Abstract Direct seawater electrolysis is a promising strategy for sustainable hydrogen production, yet it faces critical challenges in catalyst design, including scalability, chloride corrosion resistance, and cost efficiency. A one‐step interfacial redox strategy is reported to construct Fe/Co co‐doped Ru@Ni (OH) 2 electrodes (Ru@FeCo–Ni (OH) 2), enabling precise control of metal coordination environments while ensuring industrial‐scale manufacturability. This method enables the fabrication of 5000 cm 2 electrodes with no performance deviation, demonstrating compatibility with commercial electrolyzers. The Ru@FeCo‐Ni (OH) 2 electrodes exhibit remarkable durability (>3000 h) and achieve hydrogen production at 0. 87 per kg using natural seawater from the South China Sea (unpurified, with KOH added), surpassing the U. S. Department of Energy's 2031 cost target of 1 per kg. Operando spectroscopy and DFT calculations reveal a synergistic co‐doping mechanism: 1) d‐band center downshifting (Δ E = 0. 68 eV) optimizes hydrogen adsorption for superior hydrogen evolution reaction performance, while 2) accelerated surface reconstruction forms chloride‐resistant oxyhydroxide layers, improving oxygen evolution reaction efficiency. This work establishes a new paradigm in bifunctional catalyst design, providing mechanistic insights into active site evolution and a scalable pathway for cost‐effective green hydrogen production directly from seawater.
Lu et al. (Mon,) studied this question.