Electron‐Rich Ru Clusters Anchored on Pure Phase W<sub>2</sub>C Enables Highly Active and CO‐Resistant Alkaline Hydrogen Oxidation
Yanan Gao, Bo Ouyang, Yuan Shen, Wei Wen, Junxiang Wang, Mingzhe Wang, Yiqiang Sun, Kun Xu
Abstract
Abstract Developing highly active and CO‐resistant Ru‐based catalysts for the alkaline hydrogen oxidation reaction (HOR) can advance the large‐scale application of alkaline hydrogen fuel cells but remains a huge challenge. Herein, a pure phase W 2 C supported Ru cluster catalyst (Ru/W 2 C) is successfully synthesized through a one‐step carburization method. It is found that the charge transfer from W 2 C to the strongly anchored Ru clusters forms the electron‐rich Ru δ− sites and electron‐deficient W δ+ sites, which significantly weakens the adsorption strength of * H and * CO, strengthens the binding of * OH and improves the water connectivity in the electric double layer. The Ru/W 2 C catalyst shows superior mass activity (2163 mA mg PGM −1 ) in alkaline HOR, which is 12.52 and 20.62 times higher than that for Pt/C and Ru/C, respectively. Owing to the weak adsorption and fast removal rate of CO, the Ru/W 2 C exhibits outstanding CO tolerance, with 88% of the initial activity being retained in the durability test, whereas the Ru/C and Pt/C suffer from severe deactivation. These findings may guide the design of advanced alkaline HOR catalysts based on the pure phase tungsten carbide.