Facilitating alkaline hydrogen evolution reaction on the hetero-interfaced Ru/RuO2 through Pt single atoms doping
Yiming Zhu, Malte Klingenhof, Chenlong Gao, Toshinari Koketsu, G. 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
Abstract
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/RuO 2 support (referred to as Pt-Ru/RuO 2 ), 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 RuO 2 while Pt SAs and the metallic Ru facilitate the subsequent H* combination. Theoretical calculations correlate with the experimental findings. Furthermore, Pt-Ru/RuO 2 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 H 2 production.