Li Guangkai, Jang Haeseong, Liu Shangguo, Li Zijian, Kim Min Gyu, Qin Qing, Liu Xien, Cho Jaephil
College of Chemical Engineering, Qingdao University of Science and Technology, Qingdao, China.
Department of Energy Engineering, Department of Energy and Chemical Engineering, Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST), Ulsan, South Korea.
Nat Commun. 2022 Mar 11;13(1):1270. doi: 10.1038/s41467-022-28947-9.
Ru nanoparticles have been demonstrated to be highly active electrocatalysts for the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER). At present, most of Ru nanoparticles-based HER electrocatalysts with high activity are supported by heteroatom-doped carbon substrates. Few metal oxides with large band gap (more than 5 eV) as the substrates of Ru nanoparticles are employed for the HER. By using large band gap metal oxides substrates, we can distinguish the contribution of Ru nanoparticles from the substrates. Here, a highly efficient Ru/HfO composite is developed by tuning numbers of Ru-O-Hf bonds and oxygen vacancies, resulting in a 20-fold enhancement in mass activity over commercial Pt/C in an alkaline medium. Density functional theory (DFT) calculations reveal that strong metal-support interaction via Ru-O-Hf bonds and the oxygen vacancies in the supported Ru samples synergistically lower the energy barrier for water dissociation to improve catalytic activities.
钌纳米颗粒已被证明是析氢反应（HER）的高活性电催化剂。目前，大多数具有高活性的基于钌纳米颗粒的HER电催化剂由杂原子掺杂的碳载体负载。很少有带隙大（超过5 eV）的金属氧化物作为钌纳米颗粒的载体用于HER。通过使用带隙大的金属氧化物载体，我们可以区分钌纳米颗粒和载体的贡献。在此，通过调节Ru-O-Hf键的数量和氧空位，开发出一种高效的Ru/HfO复合材料，在碱性介质中其质量活性比商业Pt/C提高了20倍。密度泛函理论（DFT）计算表明，通过Ru-O-Hf键的强金属-载体相互作用以及负载的Ru样品中的氧空位协同降低了水分解的能垒，从而提高了催化活性。
