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The iridium oxide (IrO2) catalyst for the oxygen evolution reaction used industrially (in proton exchange membrane water electrolyzers) is scarce and costly. Although ruthenium oxide (RuO2) is a promising alternative, its poor stability has hindered practical application. We used well-defined extended surface models to identify that RuO2 undergoes structure-dependent corrosion that causes Ru dissolution. Tantalum (Ta) doping effectively stabilized RuO2 against such corrosion and enhanced the intrinsic activity of RuO2. In an industrial demonstration, Ta-RuO2 electrocatalyst exhibited stability near that of IrO2 and had a performance decay rate of ~14 microvolts per hour in a 2800-hour test. At current densities of 1 ampere per square centimeter, it had an overpotential 330 millivolts less than that of IrO2.
Zhang et al. (Thu,) studied this question.