Facile synthesis of effective Ru nanoparticles on carbon by adsorption-low temperature pyrolysis strategy for hydrogen evolution

Abstract

The facile synthesis of efficient catalysts for hydrogen evolution from electrochemical water splitting and ammonia borane (AB) hydrolysis is highly important. Here, we develop an adsorption-low temperature pyrolysis method for facilely preparing uniformly dispersed Ru nanoparticles on carbon (Ru/C) with an outstanding catalytic property toward hydrogen generation from both electrochemical water splitting and AB hydrolysis. The experimental results indicate that the Ru/C synthesized by calcination at 300 °C (Ru/C-300) exhibits the highest catalytic activity for the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) in basic solution, which requires an overpotential of only 14 mV at 10 mA cm⁻². Additionally, this catalyst also displays high activity and reusability toward hydrogen evolution through AB hydrolysis, leading to a high turnover frequency of 643 mol H₂ (min mol_Ru)⁻¹. Moreover, the Ru/C-300 shows excellent stability and reusability for both reactions. The adsorption-low temperature calcination strategy ensures that the small Ru nanoparticles are confined onto the carbon matrix, which can provide abundant highly reactive surface sites. It is discovered that the excellent catalytic activity of Ru/C depends largely on the size and dispersion of Ru nanoparticles as well as on their chemical states. This work may provide a facile and environmentally friendly strategy for preparing uniformly distributed metal nanocatalysts with high catalytic efficiencies for HER and AB hydrolysis.