Ruthenium triazine composite: a good match for increasing hydrogen evolution activity through contact electrification

Ju, Qiangjian, Ma, Ruguang, Pei, Yu, Guo, Beibei, Li, Zichuang, Liu, Qian, Thomas, Tiju, Yang, Minghui, Hutchings, Graham J. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8885-1560 and Wang, Jiacheng 2020. Ruthenium triazine composite: a good match for increasing hydrogen evolution activity through contact electrification. Advanced Energy Materials 10 (21) , 2000067. 10.1002/aenm.202000067

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Abstract

The development of Pt‐free catalysts for the alkaline hydrogen evolution reaction (HER), which is widely used in industrial scale water‐alkali electrolyzers, remains a contemporary and pressing challenge. Ruthenium (Ru) has excellent water‐dissociation abilities and could be an alternative water splitting catalyst. However, its large hydrogen binding energy limits HER activity. Here, a new approach is proposed to boost the HER activity of Ru through uniform loading of Ru nanoparticles on triazine‐ring (C3N3)‐doped carbon (triNC). The composite (Ru/triNC) exhibits outstanding HER activity with an ultralow overpotential of ≈2 mV at 10 mA cm−2; thereby making it the best performing electrocatalyst hitherto reported for alkaline HER. The calculated metal mass activity of Ru/triNC is >10 and 15 times higher than that of Pt/C and Pt/triNC. Both theoretical and experimental studies reveal that the triazine‐ring is a good match for Ru to weaken the hydrogen binding on Ru through interfacial charge transfer via increased contact electrification. Therefore, Ru/triNC can provide the optimal hydrogen adsorption free energy (approaching zero), while maintaining the strong water‐dissociation activity. This study provides a new avenue for designing highly efficient and stable electrocatalysts for water splitting.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Chemistry Cardiff Catalysis Institute (CCI)
Publisher:	Wiley
ISSN:	1614-6832
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	17 April 2020
Date of Acceptance:	23 March 2020
Last Modified:	18 Apr 2024 21:26
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/131075

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