Atomic interface engineering: Strawberry-like RuO2/C hybrids for efficient hydrogen evolution from ammonia borane and water

Efficient hydrogen production plays a key role in establishing hydrogen economy in the current world. In this study, we fabricated ultrafine RuO 2 nanoparticles on carbon black to form a strawberry-like RuO 2 /C hybrid, using by a solid-phase grinding and subsequent low-temperature annealing. The synthesized hybrid displays very low reaction activation energy (28.5 KJ mol −1 ) for hydrogen evolution from ammonia borane . In case of hydrogen evolution from alkaline water, it also exhibits a remarkably improved electrocatalytic activity than a commercial Pt/C, with an ultra-low overpotential of 8 mV (at 10 mA cm −2 ). For the above bifunctional catalyst , the formed C–Ru–C bonds between the ruthenium oxide and carbon result in the ultrahigh activity of the hybrid, as evidenced by DFT results. This work offers a guideline to synthesize efficient metal-based (Ru, Pd, Rh, Ir, Au, etc.) catalysts with smart structures for catalysis.