Proximal redox coupling enables oxidation damping for stable water electrolysis.

Atomically dispersed Ru-O-Cr motifs damp Ru oxidation during acidic oxygen evolution, yielding a 55.7-fold higher resistance to oxidation-induced Ru dissolution than conventional SACs.

• Why it matters: Single-atom catalysts are prone to oxidative instability, and bulk-style doping poorly controls their electronic and structural dynamics under operating conditions.
• What they did: The team engineered proximal Ru-O-Cr motifs and used in situ X-ray absorption spectroscopy to track Ru and Cr redox changes and local metal–oxygen coordination during acidic oxygen evolution.
• The result: In proton exchange membrane water electrolysis at 1 A cm -2, Ru-O-Cr catalysts show degradation rates 6.8-fold and 14.4-fold lower than Ru SACs and commercial RuO 2, respectively.

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