Superassembly of Surface-Enriched Ru Nanoclusters from Trapping–Bonding Strategy for Efficient Hydrogen Evolution

Abstract

Hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) through water splitting is a potential technology to realize the sustainable production of hydrogen, yet the tardy water dissociation and costly Pt-based catalysts inhibit its development. Here, a trapping–bonding strategy is proposed to realize the superassembly of surface-enriched Ru nanoclusters on a phytic acid modified nitrogen-doped carbon framework (denoted as NCPO-Ru NCs). The modified framework has a high affinity to metal cations and can trap plenty of Ru ions. The trapped Ru ions are mainly distributed on the surface of the framework and can form Ru nanoclusters at 50 °C with the synergistic effect of vacancies and phosphate groups. By adjusting the content of phytic acid, surface-enriched Ru nanoclusters with adjustable distribution and densities can be obtained. Benefiting from the adequate exposure of the active sites and dense distribution of ultrasmall Ru nanoclusters, the obtained NCPO-Ru NCs catalyst can effectively drive HER in alkaline electrolytes and show an activity (at overpotential of 50 mV) about 14.3 and 9.6 times higher than that of commercial Ru/C and Pt/C catalysts, respectively. Furthermore, the great performance in solar to hydrogen generation through water splitting provides more flexibility for wide applications of NCPO-Ru NCs.

Understanding the Atomic and Defective Interface Effect on Ruthenium Clusters for the Hydrogen Evolution Reaction

“…Especially, the introduction of porous structure and heteroatoms (N, P, O, etc.) into carbon-based substrates efficiently increases the number of vacancy defects for stable immobilization of active sites with high dispersion. ,,− However, there are considerable challenges in adequately adjusting electronic structures of metal–substrate interfaces at the atomic level via accessible regulation strategies. Notably, carbon-supported single-atomic catalysts have been paid great attention since the advent of remarkably improved atomic utilization with highly tailorable electronic structures in comparison to bulk and nanocatalysts. − In this regard, one would expect carbon-supported single-atom materials to serve as substrates for loading active metallic catalysts.…”

非晶态与晶态硫化钴/碳纳米管异质结用于高效电催化析氢

“…(2) In this interface, C and CoS x species play different roles. C species in CNT-a-CoS x as a carrier can enhance the structure of the CoS x catalytic site as well as the catalytic stability [31,38,39]. (3) The Co 2p binding energy of CNT-a-CoS x shifts to a higher binding energy compared with CNT-c-CoS x (Fig.…”

Work‐function‐induced Interfacial Built‐in Electric Fields in Os‐OsSe2Heterostructures for Active Acidic and Alkaline Hydrogen Evolution

“…Furthermore, the water electrolysis hydrogen production device was assembled with solar cells in an attempt to use abundant solar energy to solve possible problems that limiting the electric energy (Figure 4i). [22] Through the captured electrode pictures (Figure 4j, k) and dynamic process of water splitting demonstrated by the Video S1 (Supporting Information), the rapid evolution of H 2 and O 2 can be observed at the cathode and anode, indicating that the H 2 production efficiency of this solar-to-hydrogen device is satisfactory, possessing good potential application prospects. Similarly, we further probed the HER performance of the related catalysts in 1 M KOH (Figure S21, S22).…”