Identifying Electrocatalytic Sites of the Nanoporous Copper-Ruthenium Alloy for Hydrogen Evolution Reaction in Alkaline Electrolyte
Publication date
2020-01-10
Authors
Wu, Qiuli
Luo, Min
Han, Jiuhui
Peng, Wei
Zhao, Yang
Chen, Dechao
Peng, Ming
Liu, Ji
De Groot, F.
Tan, Yongwen
Editors
Advisors
Supervisors
Document Type
Article
Metadata
Show full item recordCollections
License
Abstract
Hydrogen production from electrochemical water splitting is a promising route to pursue clean and sustainable energy sources. Here, a three-dimensional nanoporous Cu-Ru alloy is prepared as a high-performance platinum-free catalyst for hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) by a dealloying process. Significantly, the optimized nanoporous alloy Cu53Ru47 exhibits remarkable catalytic activity for HER with nearly zero onset overpotential and ultralow Tafel slopes (∼30 and ∼35 mV dec-1) in both alkaline and neutral electrolytes, achieving a catalytic current density of 10 mA cm-2 at low overpotentials of ∼15 and ∼41 mV, respectively. Operando X-ray absorption spectroscopy experiments, in conjunction with DFT simulations, reveal that the incorporation of Ru atoms into the Cu matrix not only accelerates the reaction step rates of water adsorption and activation but also optimizes the hydrogen bonding energy on Cu and Ru active sites, improving the intrinsic activity for HER.
Keywords
X-ray absorption near edge spectroscopy, Alloys, Porosity, Catalysts, Evolution reactions, Taverne, Chemistry (miscellaneous), Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment, Fuel Technology, Energy Engineering and Power Technology, Materials Chemistry, SDG 7 - Affordable and Clean Energy
Citation
Wu, Q, Luo, M, Han, J, Peng, W, Zhao, Y, Chen, D, Peng, M, Liu, J, De Groot, F M F & Tan, Y 2020, 'Identifying Electrocatalytic Sites of the Nanoporous Copper-Ruthenium Alloy for Hydrogen Evolution Reaction in Alkaline Electrolyte', ACS Energy Letters, vol. 5, no. 1, pp. 192-199. https://doi.org/10.1021/acsenergylett.9b02374