Selectively nucleotide‐derived RuP on N,P‐codoped carbon with engineered mesopores for energy‐efficient hydrogen production assisted by hydrazine oxidation

Abstract

Integrating hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) with hydrazine oxidation reaction (HzOR) has an encouraging prospect for the energy‐saving hydrogen production, demanding the high‐performance bifunctional HER/HzOR electrocatalyst. Ruthenium phosphide/doped carbon composites have exhibited superior activity toward multiple electrocatalytic reactions. To explore the decent water‐soluble precursors containing both N and P elements is highly attractive to facilely prepare metal phosphide/doped carbon composites. Herein, as one kind ecofriendly biomolecules, adenine nucleotide was first employed to selectively fabricate the highly pure RuP nanoparticles embedded into porous N,P‐codoped carbons (RuP/PNPC) with a straightforward “mix‐and‐pyrolyze” approach. The newly prepared RuP/PNPC only requires 4.0 and −83.0 mV at 10 mA/cm2 separately in alkaline HER and HzOR, outperforming most of reported electrocatalysts, together with the outstanding neutral bifunctional performance. Furthermore, the two‐electrode alkaline and neutral overall hydrazine splitting both exhibit significant power‐efficiency superiority to the corresponding overall water splitting with the voltage difference of larger than 2 V, which can be also easily driven by the fuel cells and solar cells with considerable H2 generation. Our report innovates the N‐ and P‐bearing adenine nucleotide to effortlessly synthesize the high‐quality RuP/doped carbon composite catalysts, highly potential as a universal platform for metal phosphide‐related functional materials.