The Sabatier principle establishes a fundamental trade-off in heterogeneous electrocatalysis.In the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER), this trade-off is manifested by the coupling of Volmer step, which requires strong hydrogen adsorption, with the Heyrovsky/Tafel step, which favors facile desorption, thus giving rise to the classical volcano relationship and limiting activity even at ΔG=0. Here, we demonstrate a ferroelectric platform with dynamic tunability -- monolayer GeS2 decorated with transition metal atoms as a proof-of-concept -- where polarization-driven surface electronic reconstruction enables real-time modulation of intermediate binding strength, thereby breaking the Sabatier constraint. Reversible control of hydrogen adsorption allows strong H binding to accelerate the Volmer step, followed by weakened adsorption to promote the Heyrovsky/Tafel step.This dynamic adsorption-desorption decoupling not only surpasses the volcano limit to achieve unprecedented HER activity, but also establishes a general paradigm for designing adaptive electrocatalysts capable of reconfiguring under operating conditions.
@article{arxiv.2510.10555,
title = {Breaking the Sabatier Principle by Dynamic Adsorption-Desorption Decoupling in Electrocatalytic Hydrogen Evolution},
author = {Zi-Xuan Yang and Lei Li and Tao Huang and Hui Wan and X. S. Wang and Gui-Fang Huang and Wangyu Hu and Wei-Qing Huang},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2510.10555},
year = {2025}
}