Electron-phonon coupling and coherent energy superposition induce spin-sensitive orbital degeneracy for enhanced acidic water oxidation

Yanfeng Shi; Lupeng Wang; Miao Liu; Zuozheng Xu; Peilin Huang; Lizhe Liu; Yuanhong Xu

doi:10.1038/s41467-025-56315-w

Electron-phonon coupling and coherent energy superposition induce spin-sensitive orbital degeneracy for enhanced acidic water oxidation

Nat Commun. 2025 Jan 21;16(1):909. doi: 10.1038/s41467-025-56315-w.

Authors

Yanfeng Shi^#^{1

2}, Lupeng Wang^#¹, Miao Liu^#¹, Zuozheng Xu², Peilin Huang², Lizhe Liu³, Yuanhong Xu⁴

Affiliations

¹ Institute of Biomedical Engineering, College of Life Sciences, Qingdao University, Qingdao, China.
² Jiangsu Key Laboratory for Nanotechnology and Collaborative Innovation Center of Advanced Microstructures, National Laboratory of Solid State Microstructures, Nanjing University, Nanjing, China.
³ Jiangsu Key Laboratory for Nanotechnology and Collaborative Innovation Center of Advanced Microstructures, National Laboratory of Solid State Microstructures, Nanjing University, Nanjing, China. [email protected].
⁴ Institute of Biomedical Engineering, College of Life Sciences, Qingdao University, Qingdao, China. [email protected].

^# Contributed equally.

PMID: 39837833
DOI: 10.1038/s41467-025-56315-w

Abstract

The development of acid-stable water oxidation electrocatalysts is crucial for high-performance energy conversion devices. Different from traditional nanostructuring, here we employ an innovative microwave-mediated electron-phonon coupling technique to assemble specific Ru atomic patterns (instead of random Ru-particle depositions) on Mn_0.99Cr_0.01O₂ surfaces (Ru_MW-Mn_1-xCr_xO₂) in RuCl₃ solution because hydrated Ru-ion complexes can be uniformly activated to replace some Mn sites at nearby Cr-dopants through microwave-triggered energy coherent superposition with molecular rotations and collisions. This selective rearrangement in Ru_MW-Mn_1-xCr_xO₂ with particular spin-differentiated polarizations can induce localized spin domain inversion from reversed to parallel direction, which makes Ru_MW-Mn_1-xCr_xO₂ demonstrate a high current density of 1.0 A cm^-2 at 1.88 V and over 300 h of stability in a proton exchange membrane water electrolyzer. The cost per gallon of gasoline equivalent of the hydrogen produced is only 43% of the 2026 target set by the U.S. Department of Energy, underscoring the economic significance of this nanotechnology.

Abstract

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