Abstract: The proton exchange membrane electrolysis of water (PEMEW) can be coupled with green electricity generated from renewable energy to efficiently produce high-purity green hydrogen. Among them, the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) at the anode is still the bottleneck that affects the overall water electrolysis efficiency because of its slow kinetic process, high oxidation and corrosion. At present, the anode is extremely dependent on the limited and expensive iridium-based catalysts, which greatly limits the large-scale commercial application of proton exchange membrane (PEM)-based electrolyzers. Ruthenium, as the cheapest platinum group metal, has excellent acidic oxygen evolution activity, but its stability still needs further study, so it is urgent to develop some new ruthenium-based acidic oxygen evolution catalysts. Firstly, the reaction mechanism and stability analysis of acidic OER were reviewed. Then, the research progress in this field was mainly introduced from the aspects of composition/structure-activity-stability. Finally, some important problems in future research were summarized to promote further research on ruthenium-based acidic oxygen evolution catalysts.

Key words: proton exchange membrane, water, electrolysis, acid media, oxygen evolution reaction, ruthenium-based catalyst