ArticleNature chemistry2026
Isotope-dependent Tafel analysis probes proton transfer kinetics during electrocatalytic water splitting.
Article in Nature chemistry, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 13 papers.
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Who cites it
13 citing papers in PubMed.
- Dynamic Hydroxyl Replenishment to Stabilize Lattice Oxygen Via Polyhydroxy Metal Ions Mediation in Seawater Electrolysis.Small methods · 2026Article
- Geometrically periodic architecture for enhanced mass transport in electrocatalysis.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Coordination-Engineered Interfacial Pathway Partitioning for Electrocatalytic COAngewandte Chemie (International ed. in English) · 2026Article
- Atomically Engineered RuOAngewandte Chemie (International ed. in English) · 2026Article
- Electronic Delocalization-Confinement Coupling in Edge-Coordinated CQDs@MXene Enables Hydrogen-Bond Modulation for Ultrafast Proton Transport.Advanced materials (Deerfield Beach, Fla.) · 2026Article
- Dynamic hydroxyl mediated charge buffering stabilizes high valence ruthenium edge sites for acidic water oxidation.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Lewis base-mediated stabilization of the lattice oxygen mechanism in RuOChemical science · 2026Article
- Amide-engineered copper nitride for shortcut-pathway-locked electroreduction of concentrated hydroxymethylfurfural.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Engineering the interfacial water microenvironment to accelerate proton transfer for acidic oxygen evolution at high-potential.Chemical science · 2026Article
- Breaking the Activity-Stability Trade-off in Acidic OER via Mechanism Switching on Mo-Doped RuOPrecision chemistry · 2026Article
- Integrating Overall Water Splitting with Advanced Oxidation for Wastewater Treatment Using a Bifunctional Medium-Entropy Amorphous Alloy.Nano-micro letters · 2026Article
- Scalable and Customizable Single-Atom Coatings for pH-Universal HAdvanced materials (Deerfield Beach, Fla.) · 2026Article
- Selenoxides unlock C-H bonds of biomacromolecules.Nature chemistry · 2025Article
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Authors and funding
17 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Proton transfer plays an important role in both hydrogen and oxygen evolution reactions during electrocatalytic water splitting to produce green hydrogen. However, directly adapting the conventional proton/deuterium kinetic isotope effect to study proton transfer in heterogeneous electrocatalytic processes is challenging. Here we propose using the shift in the Tafel slope between protic and deuteric electrolytes, or the Tafel slope isotope effect, as an effective probe of proton transfer characteristics. Comparison of the Tafel slope isotope effect for diverse hydrogen and oxygen evolution reaction electrocatalysts in different pH environments reveals that proton transfer is both pH and structure dependent. Using ruthenium oxide as an example, we show that local structure modification can change the rate-determining step from an electrochemical, concerted proton-electron transfer step to a chemical step and improve the oxygen evolution activity in acid. The isotope-dependent Tafel analysis will facilitate a better understanding of the proton transfer behaviours during electrocatalytic processes and provide guidance for designing efficient electrocatalysts.
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