Regulative Electronic States around Ruthenium/Ruthenium Disulphide Heterointerfaces for Efficient Water Splitting in Acidic Media

Jiawei Zhu; Yao Guo; Fang Liu; Hanwen Xu; Lei Gong; Wenjie Shi; Ding Chen; Pengyan Wang; Yue Yang; Chengtian Zhang; Jinsong Wu; Jiahuan Luo; Shichun Mu

doi:10.1002/anie.202101539

Regulative Electronic States around Ruthenium/Ruthenium Disulphide Heterointerfaces for Efficient Water Splitting in Acidic Media

Angew Chem Int Ed Engl. 2021 May 25;60(22):12328-12334. doi: 10.1002/anie.202101539. Epub 2021 Mar 30.

Authors

Jiawei Zhu^{1

2}, Yao Guo³, Fang Liu^{1

4}, Hanwen Xu¹, Lei Gong¹, Wenjie Shi¹, Ding Chen¹, Pengyan Wang¹, Yue Yang¹, Chengtian Zhang¹, Jinsong Wu^{1

4}, Jiahuan Luo³, Shichun Mu^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ State Key Laboratory of Advanced Technology for Materials Synthesis and Processing, Wuhan University of Technology, Wuhan, 430070, P. R. China.
² Foshan Xianhu Laboratory of the Advanced Energy Science and Technology Guangdong Laboratory, Xianhu Hydrogen Valley, Foshan, 528200, P. R. China.
³ Department of Chemical and Environmental Engineering, Anyang Institute of Technology, Anyang, 455000, P. R. China.
⁴ NRC (Nanostructure Research Centre), Wuhan University of Technology, Wuhan, 430070, P. R. China.

PMID: 33634585
DOI: 10.1002/anie.202101539

Abstract

Theoretical calculations unveil the charge redistribution over abundant interfaces and the enhanced electronic states of Ru/RuS₂ heterostructure. The resulting surface electron-deficient Ru sites display optimized adsorption behavior toward diverse reaction intermediates, thereby reducing the thermodynamic energy barriers. Experimentally, for the first time the laminar Ru/RuS₂ heterostructure is rationally engineered by virtue of the synchronous reduction and sulfurization under eutectic salt system. Impressively, it exhibits extremely high catalytic activity for both OER (201 mV @ 10 mA cm^-2 ) and HER (45 mV @ 10 mA cm^-2 ) in acidic media due to favorable kinetics and excellent specific activity, consequently leading to a terrific performance in acidic overall water splitting devices (1.501 V @ 10 mA cm^-2 ). The in-depth insight into the internal activity origin of interfacial effect could offer precise guidance for the rational establishment of hybrid interfaces.

Keywords: DFT calculation; Ru-based nanomaterial; acidic water electrolysis; bifunctional electrocatalyst; heterostructure.

Abstract

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