Enhanced C-O Functionality on Carbon Papers Ensures Lowering Nucleation Delay of ALD for Ru towards Unprecedented Alkaline HER Activity

The success in lowering the nucleation delay for Atomic Layer Deposition (ALD) of Ru on carbon surfaces is mitigated by constructive pretreatments resulting enhancement of C-O functionality. Treatment of the carbon papers (CP) allowed Ru species deposition for minimum number of ALD cycles (25 cycles) with good conformality. The development of electrocatalysts from single atoms to nanoparticles (NPs) on conductive supports with low metal loadings, thus improving performance, is essential in electrocatalysis. For alkaline hydrogen evolution reaction, ALD decorated CPs with Ru exhibit low onset potentials of approximate to 4.7 mV versus reversable hydrogen electrode (RHE) (at 10 mA cm(-2)) and a high turnover frequency of 1.92 H-2 s(-1) at 30 mV versus RHE. The Ru decorated CPs show comparable to higher catalytic activity than of Platinum (Pt) decorated CP also developed by ALD. The current representation of unfamiliar catalytic activities of Ru active centers developed by ALD, pave a bright and sustainable path for energy conversion reactions.

Keywords

alkaline hydrogen evolution reaction, atomic layer deposition, low surface energy substrates, ruthenium, single atoms

Citation

Small. 2023, vol. 19, issue 32, p. 1-8.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/smll.202300974

Document type

Peer-reviewed

Document version

Published version

Language of document

en

Document licence

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/