Formation of Branched Ruthenium Nanoparticles for Improved Electrocatalysis of Oxygen Evolution Reaction

Agus R Poerwoprajitno; Lucy Gloag; Tania M Benedetti; Soshan Cheong; John Watt; Dale L Huber; J Justin Gooding; Richard D Tilley

doi:10.1002/smll.201804577

Formation of Branched Ruthenium Nanoparticles for Improved Electrocatalysis of Oxygen Evolution Reaction

Small. 2019 Apr;15(17):e1804577. doi: 10.1002/smll.201804577. Epub 2019 Mar 26.

Authors

Agus R Poerwoprajitno^{1

2}, Lucy Gloag^{1

2}, Tania M Benedetti^{1

2}, Soshan Cheong³, John Watt⁴, Dale L Huber⁴, J Justin Gooding^{1

2}, Richard D Tilley^{1

2

3}

Affiliations

¹ School of Chemistry, The University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW, 2052, Australia.
² Australian Centre for NanoMedicine, The University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW, 2052, Australia.
³ Electron Microscope Unit, Mark Wainwright Analytical Centre, The University of New South Wales, NSW, 2052, Australia.
⁴ Center for Integrated Nanotechnologies, Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque, NM, 87185, USA.

PMID: 30913370
DOI: 10.1002/smll.201804577

Abstract

Branched nanoparticles are one of the most promising nanoparticle catalysts as their branch sizes and surfaces can be tuned to enable both high activity and stability. Understanding how the crystallinity and surface facets of branched nanoparticles affect their catalytic performance is vital for further catalyst development. In this work, a synthesis is developed to form highly branched ruthenium (Ru) nanoparticles with control of crystallinity. It is shown that faceted Ru branched nanoparticles have improved stability and activity in the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) compared with polycrystalline Ru nanoparticles. This work achieves a low 180 mV overpotential at 10 mA cm^-2 for hours, demonstrating that record-high stability for Ru nanocrystals can be achieved while retaining high activity for OER. The superior electrocatalytic performance of faceted Ru branched nanoparticles is ascribed to the lower Ru dissolution rate under OER conditions due to low-index facets on the branch surfaces.

Keywords: crystallinity; electrocatalysis; nanoparticles; oxygen evolution reaction; ruthenium.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.