Boosting alkaline hydrogen oxidation by coupling of Ru nanoparticles with carbon dots

Reasonable design of efficient and environmentally friendly alkaline hydrogen oxidation (HOR) electrocatalysts is urgently required for the development of alkaline hydrogen-oxygen fuel cells. In this work, carbon dots (CDs) were coupled with ruthenium (Ru) to form a hybrid Ru/CDs electrocatalyst. The combination of CDs with Ru nanoparticles can effectively inhibit the aggregation of Ru nanoparticles. Moreover, the electronic structure of Ru is modified due to the interaction between Ru and CDs. The optimized Ru/CDs catalyst exhibited excellent alkaline HOR activity with an exchange current density of 1.56 mA cm −2 that is significantly better than commercial Pt/C catalysts. These findings considerably broaden the potential applications of CDs and provide additional options for the development of high-performance HOR electrocatalysts.