The research team of ichem researcher, Professor Wu Yuen of University of science and technology of China and Associate Professor Duan Xuezhi of Huali developed ruthenium monoatomic catalyst

Up to now, platinum based compounds are considered to be the most effective catalysts for hydrogen precipitation in acid However, the scarcity and high cost of Pt greatly limit its industrial application Compared with the cheap ruthenium metal, the density functional theory shows that it is similar to the metal hydrogen bond strength of platinum However, there are few reports about ruthenium catalyst As we all know, the support plays a strong interaction in optimizing the local geometry and electronic structure on the monoatomic catalyst Up to now, the materials for fixing metal atom sites are mainly limited to oxides and carbon based materials However, metal oxides usually exhibit poor conductivity and corrosion resistance In addition, carbon matrix materials are easy to be oxidized in electrochemical test Recently, a team of ICC hem researchers, Professor Wu Yuen (corresponding author) of University of science and technology of China and Associate Professor Duan Xuezhi of East China University of science and technology have combined to synthesize ruthenium monoatom with four nitrogen coordination on phosphorus vacancy by traditional co reduction method based on the new non carbon phosphorus nitride nanotube carrier In the 0.5m sulfuric acid hydrogen evolution test, the over potential of the catalyst is only 24 MV at the current density of 10 mA / cm 2, and its Tafel slope is 38 MV / Dec more importantly, the monoatomic catalyst shows a very high TOF value, which is much better than that of ruthenium in other carriers (carbon nitride, porous carbon) At the same time, the data of DFT calculation confirmed that the hydrogen adsorption energy of Ru single atom on the lithium nitride support was closer to that of platinum compared with other supports, which led to the improvement of the overall performance of the catalyst in the hydrogen adsorption desorption behavior Based on the schematic diagram of ruthenium single atom synthesis on phosphorus nitride support (source: Angel W chem Int ed.), this work provides a new idea for the design of single atom catalyst support, and shows that ruthenium single atom shows excellent activity and stability in acid hydrogen evolution reaction The related work is entitled "efficient and robot hydrogen evolution: phosphorus nitride image nanotubes as supports for anchoring single ruthenium sites", published in angew Chem Int ed (DOI: 10.1002 / anie 201804854) The research work was supported by national key R & D plan and National Natural Science Foundation In the experiment, Beijing light source, Shanghai light source and Hefei light source give great help in the measurement of synchrotron radiation.