Ru to W electron donation for boosted HER from acidic to alkaline on Ru/WNO sponges

Developing high-efficiency hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) catalysts is of great interest for the large-scale high-purity hydrogen production, which, unfortunately, is largely blocked by the sluggish kinetics of the electro-chemical dissociation step of water molecules. Herein, a MOF-derived method has been developed to prepare Ru nanoparticles-anchored sponge-like WNO embedded in N-doped carbon layers ([email protected]). The fabricated catalyst [email protected] (Ru: 0.9 wt%) shows excellent HER catalytic activity and long-term stability with the overpotentials of 172, 358 and 24 mV at 10 mA/cm2 in 0.5 M H2SO4, 1 M Na2SO4 and 1 M KOH, respectively. More impressively, the overpotentials, especially in neutral medium, decrease markedly during the durability tests owing to the catalyst structure activation after residual Zn species leaching. The enhanced catalytic activity of [email protected] during operation is mainly attributed to the in-situ electron donation from Ru to W, leading to the easier cleavage of highly polarized H‒OH bond of water molecules and thus endowing [email protected] with excellent HER catalytic performance in non-acidic solution.