Preparation of highly dispersed Ru-Ni alloy nanoparticles on an N-doped carbon layer (RuNi@CN) and its application as a catalyst for the hydrogen evolution reaction in alkaline solution

摘要

The hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) with transition metal alloys, as a substitute for platinum-basedcatalysts, under alkaline conditions is being increasingly studied. In this paper, a high dispersion of RuNi alloy nanoparticles on an N-doped carbon layer (RuNi@CN) were synthesized by calcining a solidmixture of D-glucosamine hydrochloride (GAH), melamine, RuCl3 and Ni(NO3)2·6H2O in an inertatmosphere. The calcination temperature was an important factor that affected the electrocatalyticperformance of RuNi@CN. The RuNi@CN electrocatalyst obtained under optimized conditions showedhigh efficiency and stable activity for the HER over a wide range of pH values, especially under alkalineconditions. The overpotentials of RuNi@CN-700 at 10 and 100 mA cm-2 were 76.26 and 213.69 mV,respectively, with a Tafel slope of 66.35 mV dec-1. Ruthenium is the cheapest platinum group metal, andits content in the catalyst was only 0.1209 wt%. Thus, this study shows the high activity and competitiveprice of this prepared catalyst.