Construction of Ru/WO3 with hetero-interface structure for efficient hydrogen evolution reaction

Abstract

Water electrolysis is considered as one most promising technique for hydrogen production. The high efficiency electrocatalyst is the key to accelerating the sluggish kinetics of the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) in alkaline media. In this work, an efficient HER electrocatalyst with hetero-interfacial metal–metal oxide structure was constructed through a redox solid phase reaction (SPR) strategy. During the annealing process under Ar atmosphere, RuO2 and WS2 in RuO2/WS2 precursor were converted to Ru nanoparticles (NPs) and WO3 in situ, where tiny Ru NPs and oxygen vacancies were uniformly distributed onto the newly formed WO3 nanosheets. Different characterization techniques were adopted to confirm the successful formation of Ru/WO3 electrocatalyst (RWOC). The optimized RWOC sample annealed at 400 °C exhibited the low overpotential value of 13 mV at a current density of 10 mA cm−2 and strong durability under the alkaline condition. Density functional theoretical calculations further revealed that the promoted adsorption/desorption rate of reaction intermediates and the accelerated kinetics of HER process were deduced to the synergistic effect between Ru and WO3 in electrocatalyst. This work provides a feasible method to fabricate highly efficient HER electrocatalysts.