@article{Huang2023, 
author = {Xiaoxiao Huang and Ruihu Lu and Yaping Cen and Dunchao Wang and Shao Jin and Wenxing Chen and Geoffrey I. and N. Waterhouse and Ziyun Wang and Shubo Tian and Xiaoming Sun},
title = {Micropore-confined Ru nanoclusters catalyst for efficient pH-universal hydrogen evolution reaction},
year = {2023},
journal = {Nano Research},
volume = {16},
number = {7},
pages = {9073-9080},
keywords = {hydrogen evolution reaction, Ru nanoparticles, Ru nanoclusters, Ru single atoms},
url = {https://www.sciopen.com/article/10.1007/s12274-023-5711-1},
doi = {10.1007/s12274-023-5711-1},
abstract = {Pt-based catalysts are used commercially for the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER), even though the low earth abundance and high cost of platinum hinder scale-up applications. Ru metal is a promising alternative catalyst for HER owing to its lower cost but similar metal–hydrogen bond strength to Pt. However, designing an efficient and robust Ru-based electrocatalyst for pH-universal HER is challenging. Herein, we successfully synthesized N-doped carbon (NC) supported ruthenium catalysts with different Ru sizes (single-atoms, nanoclusters and nanoparticles), and then systematically evaluated their performance for HER. Among these catalysts, the Ru nanocluster catalyst (Ru NCs/NC) displayed optimal catalytic performance with overpotentials of only 14, 30, and 32 mV (at 10 mA·cm−2) in 1 M KOH, 1 M phosphate buffer saline (PBS), and 0.5 M H2SO4, respectively. The corresponding mass activities were 32.2, 12.1 and 8.1 times higher than those of 20 wt.% Pt/C, and also much better than those of the Ru single-atoms (Ru SAs/NC) and Ru nanoparticle (Ru NPs/NC) catalysts, at an overpotential of 100 mV under alkaline, neutral and acidic conditions, respectively. Density functional theory (DFT) calculations revealed that the outstanding HER performance of the Ru NCs/NC catalyst resulted from a strong interaction between the Ru nanoclusters and the N-doped carbon support, which downshifted the d-band center and thus weakened the *H adsorption ability of Ru sites.}
}