Nanoscaled and Atomic Ruthenium Electrocatalysts Confined Inside Super‐Hydrophilic Carbon Nanofibers for Efficient Hydrogen Evolution Reaction
Abstract
A series of Ru‐based catalysts have been developed for the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) by the facile impregnation of copious and eco‐friendly bacterial cellulose (BC) with Ru(bpy)3 Cl 2 (bpy = 2,2′‐bipyridine) followed by pyrolysis. After the oxidation and molecular recomposition processes that occur within the BC precursors during pyrolysis, sub‐2 nm Ru nanoparticles (NPs) and atomic Ru species confined within surface‐oxidized N‐doped carbon nanofibers (CNFs) can be observed in the derived catalysts. The surface oxidation of CNFs leads the derived catalysts with super hydrophilicity and water‐absorbing capacity, and also provides dimensional confinement for the nanoscaled and atomic Ru species. With these added structural advantages and the component synergy, the derived catalysts show superior HER activities, for which the overpotentials are as low as 19.6 mV (1 m KOH) and 55.0 mV (0.5 m H 2 SO 4) for the most active case at the current density of 10 mA cm−2. Moreover, superior HER activity can be also achieved for the catalysts derived with a wide range of Ru loadings. Finally, the influence of Ru NP size on HER activity is investigated by density functional theory simulations. This method provides a reliable protocol for preparing highly active HER catalysts for scale‐up applications.
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Due to the high price of traditional precious metals, there are obvious barriers to their commercial application.
“due to the high price of traditional precious metals, there are obvious barriers to their commercial application”
From Carbon Aerogels Loaded with Noble Metal Nanocrystal Electrocatalysts for Efficient Full Water Splitting (2023) · cites this paper as [10]
Ruthenium has emerged as an attractive candidate for HER largely because of a moderate Ru-H bond strength analogous to Pt-H, which is conducive to facile HER kinetics.
“ruthenium (Ru) has emerged as an attractive candidate, largely because of a moderate strength of the ruthenium-hydrogen (Ru-H) bond that is analogous to that of Pt-H, which is conducive to facile HER kinetics [9–18]”
From Atomically dispersed ruthenium in carbon aerogels as effective catalysts for pH-universal hydrogen evolution reaction (2022) · cites this paper as [14]
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References 75 · Cited by 42
- Authors
- Xie, Q., Wang, Z., Lin, L., Shu, Y., Zhang, J., Li, C., Shen, Y., & Uyama, H.
- Affiliations
- Northwest University (CN)
- Corresponding author
- Wang, Zheng
- Shen, Yehua
- Venue
- Small
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Published
- 2021-08-06
- Volume
- 17
- Issue
- 38
- Pages
- e2102160-e2102160
- ISSN
- 1613-6810 (ISSN-L)
- 1613-6829
- OpenAlex
- W3187369855
- Cited by
- 42
- References
- 75
- Citations by year
- 2026: 5 · 2025: 5 · 2024: 6 · 2023: 12 · 2022: 14
- FWCI
- 1.50
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Small (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- National Natural Science Foundation of China (21975203)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Energy › Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment › Electrocatalysts for Energy Conversion
- Physical Sciences › Energy › Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment › CO2 Reduction Techniques and Catalysts
- Physical Sciences › Energy › Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment › Advanced Photocatalysis Techniques
- Keywords
- hydrogen evolution reaction, ruthenium electrocatalysts, ruthenium nanoparticles, carbon nanofibers, bacterial cellulose, superhydrophilicity, nitrogen-doped carbon, pyrolysis, surface oxidation, dimensional confinement, nanoparticle size effects, density functional theory
- MeSH terms
- Carbon, Hydrogen, Ruthenium, Nanofibers, Hydrophobic and Hydrophilic Interactions
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