Chitin Derived Carbon Anchored Ultrafine Ru Nanoparticles for Efficient Hydrogen Evolution Reaction

It is urgent to explore highly efficient and inexpensive electrocatalysts toward hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) for green hydrogen generation. Herein, ultrafine Ru nanoparticles (∼1.7 nm) anchored on chitin-derived porous nitrogen-doped carbon (Ru@NC) are constructed to promote the HER activity and stability via a strong metal–support interaction. Benefiting from the regulated electronic structure, Ru@NC delivers an HER overpotential of 39 mV at 10 mA cm–2, less than that of common carbon-supported Ru/C (64 mV) and Pt/C (61 mV) catalysts in alkaline solution. Meanwhile, Ru@NC exhibits superior stability compared with Ru/C and Pt/C in both potential cycling and chronoamperometric tests. By tracking the structural evolution, Ru nanoparticles still disperse uniformly in Ru@NC with the particle size less than 2 nm, while for Ru/C, the particles go through severe aggregation after cyclic stability testing. This work provides a facile strategy for designing high-efficiency electrocatalysts via engineering the composition and morphology of supports.