Constructing Symmetry-Mismatched Ru<sub><i>x</i></sub>Fe<sub>3–<i>x</i></sub>O<sub>4</sub> Heterointerface-Supported Ru Clusters for Efficient Hydrogen Evolution and Oxidation Reactions
Xueqin Mu, Xingyue Zhang, Ziyue Chen, Yun Gao, Min Yu, Ding Chen, Haozhe Pan, Suli Liu, Dingsheng Wang, Shichun Mu
Abstract
Ru-related catalysts have shown excellent performance for the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) and hydrogen oxidation reaction (HOR); however, a deep understanding of Ru-active sites on a nanoscale heterogeneous support for hydrogen catalysis is still lacking. Herein, a click chemistry strategy is proposed to design Ru cluster-decorated nanometer Ru x Fe 3– x O 4 heterointerfaces (Ru/Ru x Fe 3– x O 4 ) as highly effective bifunctional hydrogen catalysts. It is found that introducing Ru into nanometric Fe 3 O 4 species breaks the symmetry configuration and optimizes the active site in Ru/Ru x Fe 3– x O 4 for HER and HOR. As expected, the catalyst displays prominent alkaline HER and HOR performance with mass activity much higher than that of commercial Pt/C as well as robust stability during catalysis because of the strong interaction between the Ru cluster and the Ru x Fe 3– x O 4 support, and the optimized adsorption intermediate (H ad and OH ad ). This work sheds light on a promsing approach to improving the electrocatalysis performance of catalysts by the breaking of atomic dimension symmetry.