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RuCo alloy nanoparticles embedded within N-doped porous two-dimensional carbon nanosheets: a high-performance hydrogen evolution reaction catalyst

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Abstract

Developing cost-effective electrocatalysts with high activity and stability especially at high current density is of great significance for the large-scale commercial application of electrochemical water splitting to hydrogen production but still remains challenging. Herein, we report an effective confinement pyrolysis strategy to fabricate embedded ruthenium–cobalt nanoclusters supported on N-doped porous two-dimensional carbon nanosheets (RuCo@CN). Markedly, the embedded structure can effectively prevent the migration, agglomeration, and leaching of nanoparticles, thus endowing the RuCo@CN catalyst with high stability. To be exact, high stability with up to 650 h can be achieved at high current density (− 500 and − 1000 mA·cm−2). Besides, the RuCo@CN catalysts also exhibit highly reactive with low overpotentials of only 11 mV at − 10 mA·cm−2. Density functional theory calculations reveal that the introduction of cobalt reduces the decomposition barrier of H2O for RuCo@CN alloy, thus promoting hydrogen evolution reaction.

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Acknowledgements

This work was financially supported by the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (No. D5000220257, D5000220443), and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 22002120), the Natural Science Foundation of Chongqing, China (No. cstc2020jcyj-msxmX0750), the Guangdong Basic and Applied Basic Research Foundation (No. 2019A1515110507), the Key Research and Development Program of Shaanxi (No. 2023-YBGY-322).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Research and Development Institute of Northwestern Polytechnical University in Shenzhen, Shenzhen, 518057, China

    Jin-Hui Wang, Yue-Ling Cao & He-Peng Zhang

  2. Xi’an Key Laboratory of Functional Organic Porous Materials, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi’an, 710129, China

    Jin-Hui Wang, Shao-Wei Yang, Fu-Bin Ma, Yi-Ke Zhao, Zheng-Yu Xiong, Dong Cai, Hai-Dong Shen, Kai Zhu, Qiu-Yu Zhang, Yue-Ling Cao, Tian-Shuai Wang & He-Peng Zhang

  3. School of Power and Energy, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi’an, 710129, China

    Shi-Nuo Zhao

  4. Chongqing Science and Technology Innovation Center of Northwestern Polytechnical University, Chongqing, 401135, China

    Yue-Ling Cao

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  1. Jin-Hui Wang
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Contributions

YLC and HPZ conceived the presented idea. JHW carried out catalyst synthesis, characterization studies, and wrote the article. TSW carried out all the DFT calculations. JHW, SWY, FBM, YKZ, ZYX, DC, HDS, SNZ, and KZ carried out the catalytic experiments. QYZ provided funding acquisition. YLC, TSW, and HPZ helped with article modification. All authors provided critical feedback and helped shape the research, analysis, and manuscript.

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Correspondence to Yue-Ling Cao, Tian-Shuai Wang or He-Peng Zhang.

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Wang, JH., Yang, SW., Ma, FB. et al. RuCo alloy nanoparticles embedded within N-doped porous two-dimensional carbon nanosheets: a high-performance hydrogen evolution reaction catalyst. Tungsten 6, 114–123 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42864-023-00223-3

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