Supramolecular Anchoring Strategy for Facile Production of Ruthenium Nanoparticles Embedded in N-Doped Mesoporous Carbon Nanospheres for Efficient Hydrogen Generation
Abstract
Because of the favorable mass transport and increased available active sites, the rational design and preparation of porous carbon structures are essential but still challenging. Herein, a novel and facile supramolecular anchoring strategy was developed to achieve the embedding of ruthenium (Ru) nanoparticles in N-doped mesoporous carbon nanospheres through pyrolyzing the precursor formed by coordination assembly between metal ions and zinc gluconate (G(Zn)). Featuring rich hydroxyl groups, the G(Zn) can effectively chelate Ru 3+ via metal-oxygen bonds to form 3D supramolecular nanospheres, and meanwhile, mesopores in carbon nanospheres were expanded after subsequent pyrolysis thanks to the volatilization of zincic species at high temperature. As a demonstration, the best-performing catalyst displayed extraordinary activity for the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) with a small overpotential of 43 mV versus reversible hydrogen electrode (vs RHE) at 10 mA/cm 2 and a Tafel slope of 39 mV/dec, which was superior to that of commercial Pt/C in alkaline medium. Theoretical calculations revealed that the catalytic activity was significantly promoted by the strong electronic coupling between Ru nanoparticles and N-doped porous carbon, which increased the electron transfer capability and facilitated the adsorption and dissociation of H 2 O to realize an efficient HER.
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N atoms at the N-GA surface can effectively reduce aggregation of Ru-NCs at high temperatures because of the anchoring effect of N atoms.
“The N atoms at the N-GA surface can effectively reduce the aggregation of the Ru-NCs at high temperatures because of the anchoring effect of the N atoms [13,38].”
From Nitrogen-doped graphene aerogel-supported ruthenium nanocrystals for pH-universal hydrogen evolution reaction (2022) · cites this paper as [38]
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- Authors
- Zhang, S., Wang, C., Zhang, X., Xia, H., Huang, B., Guo, S., Li, J., & Wang, E.
- Affiliations
- Chinese Academy of Sciences (CN)
- Johns Hopkins University (US)
- University of Waterloo (CA)
- Hong Kong Polytechnic University (HK)
- Peking University (CN)
- Corresponding author
- Huang, Bolong
- Guo, Shaojun
- Li, Jing
- Wang, Erkang
- Venue
- ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces
- Publisher
- American Chemical Society (ACS)
- Published
- 2021-07-12
- Volume
- 13
- Issue
- 28
- Pages
- 32997-33005
- ISSN
- 1944-8244 (ISSN-L)
- 1944-8252
- OpenAlex
- W3177631222
- Cited by
- 22
- References
- 44
- Citations by year
- 2026: 5 · 2025: 4 · 2024: 3 · 2023: 8 · 2022: 2
- FWCI
- 0.61
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Licence
- Locations
- ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- Ministry of Science and Technology of the People's Republic of China (2016YFA0201303, 2019YFA0709202)
- Youth Innovation Promotion Association of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (202055)
- National Natural Science Foundation of China (21721003)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Energy › Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment › Electrocatalysts for Energy Conversion
- Physical Sciences › Materials Science › Materials Chemistry › Hydrogen Storage and Materials
- Physical Sciences › Chemistry › Organic Chemistry › Nanomaterials for catalytic reactions
- Keywords
- ruthenium nanoparticles, nitrogen-doped mesoporous carbon, carbon nanospheres, zinc gluconate, coordination assembly, hydrogen evolution reaction, alkaline water splitting, zinc volatilization, mesopore formation, electrocatalysis
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