Nitrogen-Doped Carbon-Stabilized Ru Nanoclusters as Excellent Catalysts for Hydrogen Production

The synthesis of ruthenium nanoclusters (NCs) is crucially important but challenging for hydrogen production. By taking advantage of confinement effect of nanopores in 3D porous carbon and urea as nitrogen source, we developed a straightforward method for preparation of uniform Ru NCs and simultaneous nitriding of the carbon scaffolds (Ru/3DNPC). The resulting Ru/3DNPC-500 had a measured overpotential of 15 mV at 10 mA cm–2 toward hydrogen evolution reaction as well as very high turnover frequency (584 mol of H2 (mol of Ru min)−1) for hydrolytic decomposition of ammonia–borane, outperforming many previously reported Ru-based catalysts. Ru NCs confined in 3DNPC substrate can supply numerous catalytically active sites for the reactions, thereby leading to high catalytic activity. The present synthetic strategy could open a new direction for preparing metal NCs catalysts.