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Research Article

Tuning the oxidation state of Ru to surpass Pt in hydrogen evolution reaction

Rongpeng Ma1,2,§, Ying Wang3,§, Guoqiang Li1, Long Yang1, Shiwei Liu1, Zhao Jin1, Xiao Zhao4( ), Junjie Ge1,2( ), Wei Xing1,2( )
State Key Laboratory of Electroanalytical Chemistry, Laboratory of Advanced Power Sources, Changchun Institute of Applied Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Changchun 130022, China
School of Applied Chemistry and Engineering, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230026, China
State Key Laboratory of Rare Earth Resource Utilization, Changchun Institute of Applied Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Changchun 130022, China
State Key Laboratory of Automotive Simulation and Control School of Materials Science and Engineering, Key Laboratory of Automobile Materials of MOE, Jilin University, Changchun 130012, China

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Abstract

The high price of state-of-the-art Pt electrocatalysts has plagued the acidic water electrolysis technique for decades. As a cheaper alternative to Pt, ruthenium is considered an inferior hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) catalyst than Pt due to its high susceptibility to oxidation and loss of activity. Herein, we reveal that the HER activity on Ru based catalysts could surpass Pt via tuning Ru oxidation state. Specifically, RuP clusters encapsulated in few layers of N, P-doped carbon (RuP@NPC) display a minimum over potential of 15.6 mV to deliver 10 mA·cm−2. Moreover, we for the first time show that a Ru based catalyst could afford current density up to 4 A·cm−2 in a practical water electrolysis cell, with voltage even lower than the Pt/C-based cell, as well as high robustness during 200 h operation. Using a combination of experiment probing and calculation, we postulate that the suitably charged Ru (~ +2.4) catalytic center is the origin for its superior catalytic behavior. While the moderately charged Ru is empowered with optimized H adsorption behavior, the carbon encapsulation layers protect RuP clusters from over oxidation, thereby conferring the catalyst with high robustness.

Keywords

RuP clustersRu oxidation statehydrogen evolutionencapsulating/confining layers

Electronic Supplementary Material

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Nano Research
Volume 14 Issue 11,
November 2021
Pages 4321-4327
DOI: 10.1007/s12274-021-3780-6
Cite this article:
Ma R, Wang Y, Li G, et al. Tuning the oxidation state of Ru to surpass Pt in hydrogen evolution reaction. Nano Research, 2021, 14(11): 4321-4327. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-021-3780-6
Topics:
Hydrogen economy

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Received: 16 June 2021
Revised: 13 July 2021
Accepted: 26 July 2021
Published: 12 August 2021
© Tsinghua University Press and Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2021
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