Nature Communications (Feb 2024)

Facilitating alkaline hydrogen evolution reaction on the hetero-interfaced Ru/RuO2 through Pt single atoms doping

  • Yiming Zhu,
  • Malte Klingenhof,
  • Chenlong Gao,
  • Toshinari Koketsu,
  • Gregor Weiser,
  • Yecan Pi,
  • Shangheng Liu,
  • Lijun Sui,
  • Jingrong Hou,
  • Jiayi Li,
  • Haomin Jiang,
  • Limin Xu,
  • Wei-Hsiang Huang,
  • Chih-Wen Pao,
  • Menghao Yang,
  • Zhiwei Hu,
  • Peter Strasser,
  • Jiwei Ma

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-45654-9
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 15, no. 1
pp. 1 – 13

Abstract

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Abstract Exploring an active and cost-effective electrocatalyst alternative to carbon-supported platinum nanoparticles for alkaline hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) have remained elusive to date. Here, we report a catalyst based on platinum single atoms (SAs) doped into the hetero-interfaced Ru/RuO2 support (referred to as Pt-Ru/RuO2), which features a low HER overpotential, an excellent stability and a distinctly enhanced cost-based activity compared to commercial Pt/C and Ru/C in 1 M KOH. Advanced physico-chemical characterizations disclose that the sluggish water dissociation is accelerated by RuO2 while Pt SAs and the metallic Ru facilitate the subsequent H* combination. Theoretical calculations correlate with the experimental findings. Furthermore, Pt-Ru/RuO2 only requires 1.90 V to reach 1 A cm−2 and delivers a high price activity in the anion exchange membrane water electrolyzer, outperforming the benchmark Pt/C. This research offers a feasible guidance for developing the noble metal-based catalysts with high performance and low cost toward practical H2 production.