Issue 1, 2023

Engineering a local potassium cation concentrated microenvironment toward the ampere-level current density hydrogen evolution reaction

Abstract

Finding an active and robust non-platinum catalyst toward the alkaline hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) operating at an ampere-level current density is important for emerging anion exchange membrane (AEM) water electrolysis but challenging. Here we report a nanocone-assembled Ru3Ni (NA-Ru3Ni) catalyst that exhibits a low overpotential of 168 mV at 1000 mA cm−2 and a high turnover frequency of 26.5 s−1 at an overpotential of 100 mV, with a Ru3Ni loading of only 0.08 mg cm−2. Moreover, the catalyst could stably operate at 1000 mA cm−2 over 2000 h in a practical AEM electrolyser at 60 °C, showing the best overall performance among ever-reported catalysts. The theoretical simulations and experimental results confirm that the sharp-tip concentrated K+ cations contribute to such remarkable alkaline HER activity by intensifying the polarization of the H–OH bond of interfacial water and decreasing the energy barrier for water dissociation, where the non-covalent interaction is considered as the intrinsic driving force. The present work provides general guidance for the rational design of industrially relevant alkaline HER catalysts.

Graphical abstract: Engineering a local potassium cation concentrated microenvironment toward the ampere-level current density hydrogen evolution reaction

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
01 Sep 2022
Accepted
05 Dec 2022
First published
06 Dec 2022

Energy Environ. Sci., 2023,16, 285-294

Engineering a local potassium cation concentrated microenvironment toward the ampere-level current density hydrogen evolution reaction

L. Gao, F. Bao, X. Tan, M. Li, Z. Shen, X. Chen, Z. Tang, W. Lai, Y. Lu, P. Huang, C. Ma, S. C. Smith, Z. Ye, Z. Hu and H. Huang, Energy Environ. Sci., 2023, 16, 285 DOI: 10.1039/D2EE02836K

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