Nanocatalysts: Achieving Efficient Alkaline Hydrogen Evolution Reaction over a Ni₅P₄ Catalyst Incorporating Single‐Atomic Ru Sites (Adv. Mater. 11/2020)

Abstract

Hydrogen production from electrochemical water splitting is very promising but still challenging. In article number 1906972, Li Song and co‐workers develop nickel phosphide nanocatalysts incorporated with single‐atomic noble metal for highly efficient alkaline water electrolysis. The doped metallic sites can cause localized structure polarization, largely promoting the hydrogen evolution from phosphide catalysts.

Single Ru Atoms Stabilized by Hybrid Amorphous/Crystalline FeCoNi Layered Double Hydroxide for Ultraefficient Oxygen Evolution

“…The absence of Ru−Ru and Ru−Cl coordination in the Ru SAs/AC‐FeCoNi eliminates the existence of Ru clusters and RuCl 3 residuals. [ 30,31 ] These results exhibited the isolated Ru atoms supported on AC‐FeCoNi. Moreover, the fitting EXAFS result of R‐space spectrum for Ru SAs/AC‐FeCoNi displays that each Ru atom is coordinated with four oxygen atoms (Figure 2f; Table S4, Supporting Information).…”

RuRh Bimetallene Nanoring as High‐efficiency pH‐Universal Catalyst for Hydrogen Evolution Reaction

“…As reported, ruthenium (Ru) exhibits hydrogen bond energy similar to that of Pt, but the price is 10 times lower than Pt, making Ru an ideal candidate for HER. [ 12,13 ] However, the weak hydrolytic capacity of Ru is still a major obstacle limiting its intrinsic activity in alkaline media. [ 14 ] Recently, Ru‐based alloy nanocrystals are always considered as highly active catalysts because they can expose more active sites at both exterior and interior surfaces.…”

“…[ 18 ] Meanwhile, among the anisotropic nanocatalysts, due to quantum confinement, the thin‐sheet structure can allow the metal alloy with a large electrochemically active surface area as well as high atomic utilization, resulting in high mass activity toward the catalytic performance. [ 13 ] Although some progress has been made for the alloyed Ru (Rh)‐based nanocrystal catalysts, their smooth surface either limits the number of active sites due to the relatively large diameter of nanocrystals, or prohibits the stability owing to the surface GBs defect. [ 8 ] Thus, optimizing the surface defect of Ru (Rh)‐based alloy thin‐sheets to stabilize the coordination structure of two neighboring monomers is significant for creating the high‐performance catalyst but yet remains a great challenge.…”

Rational Design and Controlled Synthesis of V‐Doped Ni3S2/NixPy Heterostructured Nanosheets for the Hydrogen Evolution Reaction

“…As a half‐reaction of overall water splitting, the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) has been considered to be the most promising method to produce hydrogen with environmental and efficiency advantages [1–5] . Compared with acidic solution, H 2 O has higher dissociation energy under alkaline conditions and it is more difficult to generate H*, so it is meaningful to develop efficient catalysts for HER in alkaline solution [6,7] . Up to now, owing to the lowest overpotential, materials based on the noble metal Pt are among the most efficient and widely studied catalysts for HER [8–11] .…”