Ultra-fine Ru nanoparticles decorated V2O3 as a pH-universal electrocatalyst for efficient hydrogen evolution reaction

Developing high-efficiency electrocatalysts viable for pH-universal hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) has attracted great interest because hydrogen is a promising renewable energy carrier for replacing fossil fuels. Herein, we present a facile strategy for fabricating ultra-fine Ru nanoparticles (NPs) decorated V2O3 on the carbon cloth substrates as efficient and stable pH-universal catalysts for HER. Benefiting from the metallic property and electronic conductivity of V2O3 matrix, the optimized hybrid (Ru/V2O3-CC) exhibits excellent HER activities in a wide pH range, achieving lower overpotentials of 184, 219, and 221 mV at 100 mA cm−2 in 0.5 M H2SO4, 1.0 M KOH and 1.0 M phosphate-buffered saline, respectively. Moreover, the electrode remains superior stability with negligible degradation after 5000 cyclic voltammetry scanning whether in acidic, alkaline or neutral media. Experimental results, combined with theoretical calculations, demonstrate that the interaction between Ru NPs and the support V2O3 induces the local electronic density diversity, allowing optimization of the adsorption energy of Ru towards hydrogen intermediate H∗, thus favoring the HER process.