CoFe embedded in nitrogen-doped porous carbon with spider-egg structure derived from MOFs promote the dispersion of Ru nanoparticles for high-performance hydrogen-evolution-reaction

Abstract

Despite significant progress, precise control of the dispersion of ruthenium (Ru) nanoparticles (NPs) on the carrier, reduction of their aggregation and leaching during water splitting is always a challenging issue. In this work, metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) derived Co7Fe3 alloy/Co NPs embedded in nitrogen-doped carbon and nitrogen-doped carbon nanotubes (FeCoSG/NCNT) with a three-dimensional (3D) spider-egg structure are synthesized by chemical vapor deposition (CVD) technique. Then, Ru NPs are uniformly loaded on the FeCoSG/NCNT through impregnation and reduction. The obtained FeCoSG/NCNT@Ru possesses enriched mesopore and high conductivity. In addition, the Ru NPs synergize with non-precious metal active sites to promote hydrogen-evolution-reaction (HER), which lowers the need for precious metals while maintaining excellent performance. The obtained FeCoSG/NCNT@Ru only requires a low overpotential of 21.1 mV to attain a current density of 10 mA cm−2 in 1 M KOH towards HER, which is smaller than the benchmark catalyst Pt/C (∼30.1 mV). Moreover, it shows ultra-high stability, which can work continuously at current densities of 10, 20, and 30 mA cm−2 for 25 h without degradation, respectively. The study presents insight on the design of advanced support and the construction of highly active and durable electrocatalysts.