Conversion of bimetallic MOF to Ru-doped Cu electrocatalysts for efficient hydrogen evolution in alkaline media

Mengya Yang; Long Jiao; Huilong Dong; Liujiang Zhou; Changqing Teng; Dongming Yan; Tian-Nan Ye; Xiaoxin Chen; Yi Liu; Hai-Long Jiang

doi:10.1016/j.scib.2020.06.036

Conversion of bimetallic MOF to Ru-doped Cu electrocatalysts for efficient hydrogen evolution in alkaline media

Sci Bull (Beijing). 2021 Feb 15;66(3):257-264. doi: 10.1016/j.scib.2020.06.036. Epub 2020 Jun 26.

Authors

Mengya Yang¹, Long Jiao², Huilong Dong³, Liujiang Zhou⁴, Changqing Teng¹, Dongming Yan⁵, Tian-Nan Ye⁶, Xiaoxin Chen⁷, Yi Liu⁸, Hai-Long Jiang⁹

Affiliations

¹ Institute for Composites Science Innovation (InCSI), School of Materials Science and Engineering, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027, China.
² Hefei National Laboratory for Physical Sciences at the Microscale, Department of Chemistry, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230026, China.
³ School of Chemistry and Materials Engineering, Changshu Institute of Technology, Changshu 215500, China.
⁴ Institute of Fundamental and Frontier Sciences, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu 610054, China. Electronic address: liujiang86@gmail.com.
⁵ School of Civil and Architectural Engineering, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310058, China.
⁶ Materials Research Center for Element Strategy, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Yokohama 226-8503, Japan.
⁷ Center of Electron Microscopy and School of Material Science and Engineering, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027, China.
⁸ Institute for Composites Science Innovation (InCSI), School of Materials Science and Engineering, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027, China. Electronic address: liuyimse@zju.edu.cn.
⁹ Hefei National Laboratory for Physical Sciences at the Microscale, Department of Chemistry, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230026, China. Electronic address: jianglab@ustc.edu.cn.

PMID: 36654331
DOI: 10.1016/j.scib.2020.06.036

Abstract

The rational design and construction of inexpensive and highly active electrocatalysts for hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) is of great importance for water splitting. Herein, we develop a facile approach for preparation of porous carbon-confined Ru-doped Cu nanoparticles (denoted as Ru-Cu@C) by direct pyrolysis of the Ru-exchanged Cu-BTC metal-organic framework. When served as the electrocatalyst for HER, strikingly, the obtained Ru-Cu@C catalyst exhibits an ultralow overpotential (only 20 mV at 10 mA cm^-2) with a small Tafel slope of 37 mV dec^-1 in alkaline electrolyte. The excellent performance is comparable or even superior to that of commercial Pt/C catalyst. Density functional theory (DFT) calculations confirm that introducing Ru atoms into Cu nanocrystals can significantly alter the desorption of H₂ to achieve a close-to-zero hydrogen adsorption energy and thereby boost the HER process. This strategy gives a fresh impetus to explore low-cost and high-performance catalysts for HER in alkaline media.

Keywords: Alkaline media; Hydrogen adsorption energy; Hydrogen evolution reaction; Metal–organic framework; Ru-doped Cu nanoparticles.