Gao Jing, Yang Liu, Wang Di, Cao Dapeng
State Key Laboratory of Organic-Inorganic Composites, Beijing University of Chemical Technology, Beijing, 100029, P.R. China.
Chemistry. 2020 Mar 26;26(18):4112-4119. doi: 10.1002/chem.201904337. Epub 2019 Nov 15.
Hydrogen energy is considered as one of the ideal clean energies for solving the energy shortage and environmental issues, and developing highly efficient electrocatalysts for overall water splitting to produce hydrogen is still a huge challenge. Herein, for the first time, Ru-doped Cu O vertically arranged nanotube arrays in situ grown on Cu foam (Ru/Cu O NT/CuF) are reported and further investigated for their catalytic properties for overall water splitting. The Ru/Cu O NT/CuF presents ultrahigh catalytic activities for both the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) and oxygen evolution reaction (OER) in alkaline conditions, and it exhibits a small overpotential of 32 mV at 10 mA cm in the HER, and only needs 210 mV overpotential to achieve a current density of 10 mA cm in the OER. Importantly, the alkaline electrolyzer using Ru/Cu O NT/CuF as a bifunctional electrocatalyst only needs 1.53 V voltage to deliver a current density of 10 mA cm , which is much lower than the benchmark of IrO (+)/Pt(-) counterpart (1.64 V at 10 mA cm ). The excellent performance of the Ru/Cu O NT/CuF catalyst is attributed to its high conductive substrate and special Ru-doped nanotube structure, which provides a high electrochemical active surface area and 3D gas diffusion channel.
氢能被认为是解决能源短缺和环境问题的理想清洁能源之一，开发用于全水解制氢的高效电催化剂仍然是一个巨大的挑战。在此，首次报道了原位生长在泡沫铜上的Ru掺杂CuO垂直排列纳米管阵列（Ru/CuO NT/CuF），并对其全水解催化性能进行了进一步研究。Ru/CuO NT/CuF在碱性条件下对析氢反应（HER）和析氧反应（OER）均表现出超高的催化活性，在HER中，在10 mA cm时过电位仅为32 mV，在OER中达到10 mA cm的电流密度仅需210 mV过电位。重要的是，使用Ru/CuO NT/CuF作为双功能电催化剂的碱性电解槽在10 mA cm的电流密度下仅需1.53 V电压，远低于IrO(+)/Pt(-)对应物的基准值（10 mA cm时为1.64 V）。Ru/CuO NT/CuF催化剂的优异性能归因于其高导电基底和特殊的Ru掺杂纳米管结构，该结构提供了高电化学活性表面积和三维气体扩散通道。
