• Hierarchical N-doped porous carbons (NPCs) with large surface area and controllable N-doping are synthesized by ball milling, followed by pyrolysis. • As a Zn-air battery cathode, NPCs have comparable discharge performance to precious metal catalysts and more stability. • NPCs also exhibit an excellent specific capacity and cycling stability when used as supercapacitor electrodes. ABSTRACT Nitrogen-doped carbon materials with a large specific surface area, high conductivity, and adjustable microstructures have many prospects for energy-related applications. This is especially true for N-doped nanocarbons used in the electrocatalytic oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) and supercapacitors. Here, we report a low-cost, environmentally friendly, large-scale mechano
Developing
high-performance and cost-effective bifunctional electrocatalysts
for water splitting is the key to large-scale hydrogen production.
How to achieve higher performance with a lower amount of noble metal
is still a major challenge. Herein, using a facile wet-chemistry strategy,
we report the ultralow amount loading of ruthenium (Ru) on porous
nickel foam (NF) as a highly efficient bifunctional electrocatalyst
for water splitting. Theoretical simulations reveal that the coupling
effect of Ru and Ni can significantly reduce the d-band center of
the composite. The Ru-modified NF exhibits a very high level of HER
activity with only 0.3 wt% of Ru, far surpassing commercial Pt/C.
It only requires an extremely low overpotential (η10) of 10 mV to achieve a current density of 10 mA cm–2 in alkaline solution and a quite low Tafel slope of 34 mV dec–1. This catalyst also shows remarkable performance
for overall water splitting with a low voltage of 1.56 V at 10 mA
cm–2. These findings indicate the potential of this
material in water–alkali electrolyzers, providing a new approach
for fabrication of low-cost advanced electrocatalysts.
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