Nitrogen-doped carbon-coated Ru nanoparticles as a highly efficient and stable electrocatalyst for alkaline hydrogen oxidation reaction

Abstract

Designing non-Pt-based electrocatalysts with high catalytic activity is challenging but extremely desirable for alkaline hydrogen oxidation reaction (HOR). Herein, we successfully design a nitrogen doped carbon shell coated Ru nanoparticles (Ru@NC) catalyst for efficient alkaline HOR. The obtained Ru@NC exhibits an excellent mass activity of 1.279 mA μg_PGM^-1, which is 8.1-times, 10.3-times and 3.7-times higher than that of Ru@C, Ru/C and commercial Pt/C. When further employed as the anode catalyst for anion exchange membrane fuel cell (AEMFC), a peak power density of 1.114 W cm^-2 can be achieved for Ru@NC. Density functional theory (DFT) calculations and experimental results indicate that the hydroxyl binding energy (OHBE) is continually enhanced on the catalysts due to the encapsulation of carbon shell and nitrogen doping derived from the upshifted d-band center of Ru sites in catalysts, which is responsible for the enhanced alkaline HOR performance.