Zhang Meilin, Wang Jinlei, Zhang Yeqing, Ye Lei, Gong Yaqiong
School of Chemical Engineering and Technology, North University of China, Taiyuan, Shanxi 030051, China.
Dalton Trans. 2021 Feb 28;50(8):2973-2980. doi: 10.1039/d0dt04248j. Epub 2021 Feb 10.
The development of hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) electrocatalysts with outstanding efficiency and favorable stability at all pH values is of great significance but still a dominating challenge toward the development of electrochemical water-splitting technology. Herein, CoRu alloy nanoparticles assembled in CoN porous nanosheets (named as CoRu@CoN) have been successfully achieved from Ru(OH)@Co(OH) through a one-step nitridation process. Benefiting from the unique structure, inherent alloy properties and strong alloy-support interaction derived from the in situ transformation, the resultant hybrids exhibit superior HER activities over a wide pH range, achieving very low overpotentials of 13 mV, 44 mV and 15 mV at 10 mA cm under alkaline, neutral and acidic conditions, respectively. Such activities surpass most reported electrocatalysts and are comparable or even transcendent to commercial Ru/C and Pt/C. Furthermore, CoRu@CoN also exhibits outstanding stability during the accelerated degradation test (ADT) and chronopotentiometry. Our work provides a new approach for designing pH-universal Ru-involved HER electrocatalysts with remarkable efficiency and prominent durability.
开发在所有pH值下均具有出色效率和良好稳定性的析氢反应（HER）电催化剂具有重要意义，但对于电化学水分解技术的发展而言仍是一项主要挑战。在此，通过一步氮化过程成功地从Ru(OH)@Co(OH)制备出组装在CoN多孔纳米片中的CoRu合金纳米颗粒（命名为CoRu@CoN）。得益于独特的结构、固有的合金特性以及原位转变产生的强合金-载体相互作用，所得的杂化物在很宽的pH范围内表现出优异的HER活性，在碱性、中性和酸性条件下，在10 mA cm时分别实现了13 mV、44 mV和15 mV的极低过电位。这些活性超过了大多数已报道的电催化剂，与商业Ru/C和Pt/C相当甚至更优。此外，CoRu@CoN在加速降解测试（ADT）和计时电位法测试中也表现出出色的稳定性。我们的工作为设计具有卓越效率和突出耐久性的pH通用型含Ru的HER电催化剂提供了一种新方法。
