Bifunctional fluorine doped Ru/RuO clusters with dynamic electron modification and strong metal-support interaction boost proton exchange membrane water electrolyzer.

The sluggish kinetics and inherent instability over the Ru/RuO clusters are still enormous challenges in proton exchange membrane (PEM) water electrolyzer. Herein, we innovatively report synergistic modulation of dynamic electron modification and strong metal-support interaction (SMSI) to activate and stabilize bifunctional fluorine doped Ru/RuO clusters anchored on carbon nanotube (CNT), thus achieving efficient and stable acidic overall water splitting. Theoretical and experimental studies found that surface metal-fluorine modification layer could dynamically regulate the interfacial electronic environment to stabilize and activate multiple active Ru species; and the SMSI between Ru/RuO cluster and CNT maintains stable electronic environment for dynamic electron modification and avoids migrating or shedding of active species in acidic environment.

Mixture Phases Engineering of PtFe Nanofoams for Efficient Hydrogen Evolution.

Phase engineering is a promising but challenging approach to construct PtFe-based catalysts with efficient hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) performance. Herein, the authors successfully synthesize PtFe nanofoams with face center cubic (fcc) phase, with simple cubic crystalline (scc) phase and with the mixture phases of fcc and scc phases (PtFe-mix) by hydrogen-assisted calcination for the first time. By benchmarking the HER activity, PtFe-mix exhibits excellent activity in 1.

Noble Metal (Pt, Rh, Pd, Ir) Doped Ru/CNT Ultra-Small Alloy for Acidic Hydrogen Evolution at High Current Density.

There are still great challenges to prepare high-efficiency Ru-based catalysts that are superior to Pt/C under acidic conditions, especially under high current conditions. In this work, a series of surfactant-free noble metal doped Ru/CNT (M-Ru/CNT, M = Pt, Rh, Pd, Ir, CNT stands for carbon nanotube) are prepared by microwave reduction method in 1 minute with ≈3-3.5 nm in size for the first time.