Ruthenium-cobalt nanoalloys encapsulated in nitrogen-doped graphene as active electrocatalysts for producing hydrogen in alkaline media

Abstract The scalable production of hydrogen could conveniently be realized by alkaline water electrolysis. Currently, the major challenge confronting hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) is lacking inexpensive alternatives to platinum-based electrocatalysts. Here we report a high-efficient and stable electrocatalyst composed of ruthenium and cobalt bimetallic nanoalloy encapsulated in nitrogen-doped graphene layers. The catalysts display remarkable performance with low overpotentials of only 28 and 218 mV at 10 and 100 mA cm −2 , respectively, and excellent stability of 10,000 cycles. Ruthenium is the cheapest platinum-group metal and its amount in the catalyst is only 3.58 wt.%, showing the catalyst high…

• NN
  National Natural Science Foundation of China

  Awards: WK2060140021, 21271163, U1232211, 2016HSC-IU011, 21571168, 21271163, U1232211
• UO
  University of Science and Technology of China
• HS
  Hefei Science Center, Chinese Academy of Sciences

  Award: 2016HSC-IU011
• FR
  Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities

  Award: WK2060140021