Hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) is an essential step in converting renewable energy to clean hydrogen fuel. Exploring highly efficient, stable and cost-effective electrocatalysts is of crucial significance for susta...Hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) is an essential step in converting renewable energy to clean hydrogen fuel. Exploring highly efficient, stable and cost-effective electrocatalysts is of crucial significance for sustainable HER. Here, we report the design of a coupled ruthenium/cobalt oxide (Ru/CoO) hybrid electrocatalyst for alkaline HER. In this hybrid metal/oxide system, the complicated alkaline HER pathways are overall facilitated;oxygen (O)-vacancy-abundant oxide enhances water splitting and Ru promotes successive hydrogen intermediates to generate hydrogen. The resulting Ru/CoO hybrid electrocatalyst exhibits significantly promoted catalytic activity compared with benchmark Ru catalyst, displaying an overpotential of 55 mV to generate a HER current density of 10 mA cm^-2, comparable with the state-of-the-art Pt/C catalyst and the most efficient alkaline HER electrocatalysts. Furthermore, the strong interaction of Ru nanoparticles with oxide support and the in-situ growth of oxide support on conductive substrate guarantee the long-term stability of as-fabricated Ru/CoO hybrid electrocatalyst. This newly designed hybrid catalyst with abundant metal/oxide interfaces may pave a new pathway for exploring efficient and stable HER electrocatalysts.展开更多
基金supported by the National Science Fund for Excellent Young Scholars (51722103)the Natural Science Foundation of China (51571149)
文摘Hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) is an essential step in converting renewable energy to clean hydrogen fuel. Exploring highly efficient, stable and cost-effective electrocatalysts is of crucial significance for sustainable HER. Here, we report the design of a coupled ruthenium/cobalt oxide (Ru/CoO) hybrid electrocatalyst for alkaline HER. In this hybrid metal/oxide system, the complicated alkaline HER pathways are overall facilitated;oxygen (O)-vacancy-abundant oxide enhances water splitting and Ru promotes successive hydrogen intermediates to generate hydrogen. The resulting Ru/CoO hybrid electrocatalyst exhibits significantly promoted catalytic activity compared with benchmark Ru catalyst, displaying an overpotential of 55 mV to generate a HER current density of 10 mA cm^-2, comparable with the state-of-the-art Pt/C catalyst and the most efficient alkaline HER electrocatalysts. Furthermore, the strong interaction of Ru nanoparticles with oxide support and the in-situ growth of oxide support on conductive substrate guarantee the long-term stability of as-fabricated Ru/CoO hybrid electrocatalyst. This newly designed hybrid catalyst with abundant metal/oxide interfaces may pave a new pathway for exploring efficient and stable HER electrocatalysts.
