Highly dispersed ultra-fine Ru nanoparticles anchored on nitrogen-doped carbon sheets for efficient hydrogen evolution reaction with a low overpotential

Abstract

Development of highly efficient and costeffective hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) electrocatalyst that rivals benchmark Pt is highly desirable but challengeable. In this work, the integration of uniformly dispersed ultra-fine Ru nanoparticles with the nitrogen-doped carbon sheets (NCs) is reported as an efficient electrocatalyst. The Ru/NCs composite catalyst possesses abundant catalytic activity sites, and the synergy effect between Ru and NCs can modulate the electronic structure and adsorption of reaction intermediate to enhance the HER activity. Remarkably, the optimal 20% Ru/NCs catalyst delivers an overpotential of as low as 13 mV at the current density of 10 mA cm−2 and with a Tafel slope of 31.8 mV dec−1, which is superior to most of recently reported Ru-based electrocatalysts and even, superior to the state of the art Pt/C catalyst. This work provides an effective strategy for the development of ultra-efficient electrocatalyst for the water splitting in alkaline condition.