Ruthenium atomically dispersed in carbon outperforms platinum toward hydrogen evolution in alkaline media

Bingzhang Lu, Lin Guo, Feng Wu, Yi Peng, Jia En Lu, Tyler J. Smart, Nan Wang, Y. Zou Finfrock, David Morris, Peng Zhang, Ning Li, Peng Gao, Yuan Ping () and Shaowei Chen ()
Additional contact information
Bingzhang Lu: University of California
Lin Guo: University of California
Feng Wu: University of California
Yi Peng: University of California
Jia En Lu: University of California
Tyler J. Smart: University of California
Nan Wang: South China University of Technology, Guangzhou Higher Education Mega Center
Y. Zou Finfrock: Canadian Light Source Inc.
David Morris: Dalhousie University
Peng Zhang: Dalhousie University
Ning Li: Peking University
Peng Gao: Peking University
Yuan Ping: University of California
Shaowei Chen: University of California

Nature Communications, 2019, vol. 10, issue 1, 1-11

Abstract: Abstract Hydrogen evolution reaction is an important process in electrochemical energy technologies. Herein, ruthenium and nitrogen codoped carbon nanowires are prepared as effective hydrogen evolution catalysts. The catalytic performance is markedly better than that of commercial platinum catalyst, with an overpotential of only −12 mV to reach the current density of 10 mV cm-2 in 1 M KOH and −47 mV in 0.1 M KOH. Comparisons with control experiments suggest that the remarkable activity is mainly ascribed to individual ruthenium atoms embedded within the carbon matrix, with minimal contributions from ruthenium nanoparticles. Consistent results are obtained in first-principles calculations, where RuCxNy moieties are found to show a much lower hydrogen binding energy than ruthenium nanoparticles, and a lower kinetic barrier for water dissociation than platinum. Among these, RuC2N2 stands out as the most active catalytic center, where both ruthenium and adjacent carbon atoms are the possible active sites.

Date: 2019
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-08419-3 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:10:y:2019:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-019-08419-3

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-019-08419-3

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().