Interface engineering breaks both stability and activity limits of RuO₂ for sustainable water oxidation

Designing catalytic materials with enhanced stability and activity is crucial for sustainable electrochemical energy technologies. RuO₂ is the most active material for oxygen evolution reaction (OER) in electrolysers aiming at producing ‘green’ hydrogen, however it encounters critical electrochemical oxidation and dissolution issues during reaction. It remains a grand challenge to achieve stable and active RuO₂ electrocatalyst as the current strategies usually enhance one of the two properties at the expense of the other. Here, we report breaking the stability and activity limits of RuO₂ in neutral and alkaline environments by constructing a RuO₂/CoO_x interface. We demonstrate that RuO₂ can be greatly stabilized on the CoO_x substrate to exceed the Pourbaix stability limit of bulk RuO₂. This is realized by the preferential oxidation of CoO_x during OER and the electron gain of RuO₂ through the interface. Besides, a highly active Ru/Co dual-atom site can be generated around the RuO₂/CoO_x interface to synergistically adsorb the oxygen intermediates, leading to a favourable reaction path. The as-designed RuO₂/CoO_x catalyst provides an avenue to achieve stable and active materials for sustainable electrochemical energy technologies. © 2022, The Author(s).