The efficiency of electrochemical water splitting is extremely hampered by the sluggish oxygen evolution reaction (OER) occurred at the anode. Therefore, developing high-performance OER electrocatalysts is crucial for realizing the industrialized application of water splitting. Herein, a high-efficiency electrocatalyst of ruthenium-decorated nickel-iron hydroxide (10Ru-NiFe LDH) supported on Ni foam is successfully synthesized for OER. Modifying NiFe LDH with ruthenium can optimize the electronic density to form high valences of metal sites, which is beneficial to promote its OER performance. Consequently, the 10Ru-NiFe LDH only needs a low overpotential of 222 mV to achieve a current density of 50 mA·cm⁻², which exhibits fast OER kinetics with a small Tafel slope of 58 mV·dec⁻¹. Moreover, this electrocatalyst shows high stability over 20 h at a high current density of 100 mA·cm⁻² without obvious decay. The decent OER performances can be ascribed to the increased active sites and the synergistic electronic interactions among Ni, Fe and Ru. This work provides an effective approach for designing desirable electrocatalysts for OER.

Graphical abstract

中文翻译：

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钌和镍铁氢氧化物之间的协同电子相互作用增强析氧反应

阳极发生缓慢的析氧反应（OER）极大地阻碍了电化学水分解的效率。因此，开发高性能的OER电催化剂对于实现水分解的工业化应用至关重要。在此，成功地合成了一种负载在泡沫镍上的钌修饰的镍铁氢氧化物（10Ru-NiFe LDH）高效电催化剂，用于 OER。用钌修饰NiFe LDH可以优化电子密度，形成高价金属位点，有利于提升其OER性能。因此，10Ru-NiFe LDH 仅需 222 mV 的低过电势即可实现 50 mA·cm ^-2的电流密度，其表现出快速的 OER 动力学，具有 58 mV·dec ^{-1的小 Tafel 斜率}. ^{此外，该电催化剂在100 mA·cm -2}的高电流密度下在20小时内表现出高稳定性，没有明显衰减。良好的 OER 性能可归因于活性位点的增加和 Ni、Fe 和 Ru 之间的协同电子相互作用。这项工作为设计理想的 OER 电催化剂提供了一种有效的方法。

图形概要