A non-carbon catalyst support upgrades the intrinsic activity of ruthenium for hydrogen evolution electrocatalysis via strong interfacial electronic effects

Metal-support interactions play crucial roles in tailoring the activity and stability of catalytic active sites by virtue of electronic, geometric and compositional effects. Here, we report a hybrid electrocatalyst composed of ultrafine Ru nanoclusters uniformly anchored on mesoporous Mo2N nanorods (Ru–Mo2N) for highly efficient hydrogen evolution reaction (HER). With a low Ru content of 4.1 wt%, Ru–Mo2N requires overpotentials of only 18 and 16 mV for affording a current density of −10 mA cm−2 in acidic and alkaline media, respectively. The outstanding performance has been revealed to originate from the interfacial electronic interactions between Ru and Mo2N, which induces charge redistribution at the interface region and slightly positive oxidation state of Ru. The downshift of the d-band center of Ru nanoclusters results in reduced binding strength to reactive intermediates and improved HER thermodynamics on Ru surface. This work has demonstrated that engineering the electronic interactions between catalyst and support is one promising route for constructing high-performance electrocatalysts.