Professor Tan Yongwen's team of Hunan University publishes the latest development of three-dimensional nano porous metal Cu Ru alloy electrocatalytic hydrogen production

Recently, Professor Tan Yongwen's team of Hunan University published a research paper entitled "identifying electrical sites of the nanoborous copper – ruthenium alloy for hydraulic evolution reaction in alkaline electron" (DOI: 10.1021 / acenergylett 9b02374) in ACS energy letters Wu Qiuli, a postgraduate student, is the first author of the paper, Luo min, an associate professor of Shanghai University of technology, is the co first author of the paper, and Tan Yongwen, a corresponding author Electrochemical decomposition of water for hydrogen production is considered to be an effective way to meet the demand of renewable clean energy Precious metal platinum is the most effective catalyst for hydrogen evolution in acid condition, but in alkaline or neutral electrolyte, platinum has poor ability of water dissociation during hydrogen evolution, and its conversion efficiency is 2 to 3 orders of magnitude lower than that in acid condition Non noble metal catalysts have been widely studied based on cost advantages, but the overpotential and durability of hydrogen evolution are still lower than those of platinum based catalysts In view of the above problems, the alloying of precious metals and transition metals is an effective way to improve the catalytic activity and stability, and reduce the cost, but the source behind the high efficiency of alloy catalysts still needs to be explored Therefore, the focus of the researchers is to find out the efficient catalyst in alkaline and neutral electrolyte and to find out its catalytic mechanism For this reason, Professor Tan Yongwen's team prepared three-dimensional nano porous Cu Ru alloy with different proportions through traditional metallurgical technology and dealloying process Due to the high specific surface area of porous alloy and the synergistic effect of alloy atoms, Ru Cu alloy (np-cu 53 Ru 47), as an alkaline electrocatalytic hydrogen evolution catalyst, has higher activity and durability than commercial Pt / C catalyst The team further used in-situ synchrotron radiation characterization and theoretical simulation calculation to systematically study the nano porous Cu Ru alloy under real catalytic conditions It was found that Ru atoms mixed into the copper matrix modulated the electronic structure of the alloy, not only accelerated the reaction steps of water molecular adsorption and activation, but also optimized the adsorption desorption barrier of copper sites and ruthenium sites for hydrogen intermediates This work not only successfully synthesized bimetallic alloy and systematically studied its catalytic activity source, but also opened up a way for the realization of cheap and effective energy conversion system The above research is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China, the national "youth thousand talents plan" project, the basic scientific research fund of Central University, the independent research and development project of the State Key Laboratory of advanced design and manufacturing of automobile body of Hunan University and the open project of the State Key Laboratory of powder metallurgy of Central South University.