Re-Ru-Fe multi-metal sites drives the strong binding-detoxification effect of OH- to optimize the alkaline HER kinetics

How to skillfully enhance the OH - binding energy of the hydrophilic site to accelerate water decomposition and avoid OH - poisoning is a huge challenge for achieving efficient alkaline HER kinetics. Therefore, the Ru-Fe 2 P/Re 3 P 4 model was designed from the perspective of coordinating the binding energy and spillover path of OH - . Density functional theory (DFT) disclosed that Re and Ru atoms act as hydrophilic sites and hydrogen evolution sites, respectively, to synergistically promote alkaline HER. In addition, the Ru dopant reduced the water dissociation energy barrier by enhancing the OH - binding energy of the Re hydrophilic sites. Meanwhile, Fe atoms with stronger OH - binding energy exhibited the OH - detoxification effect by promoting the OH - dynamic spillover from the Re sites. Given these, a unique Ru-ReFeP/IF-Q electrode was prepared by the ‘vapor phase phosphorization-quenching Ru doping’ strategy. As anticipated, the Ru-ReFeP/IF-Q electrode, driven by the Re-Ru-Fe alkaline hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) mechanism, only requires an overpotential of 172 mV at the industrial-level current density of 1 A cm −2 . The reinforced signal peaks attributed to Ru-H and Fe-OH species in the in-situ Raman spectra confirmed the detoxifying effect of Fe sites in avoiding OH - poisoning at hydrophilic active sites. In summary, this work provides a novel design idea for accelerating alkaline HER kinetics from the perspective of synergistically optimizing the binding energy and spillover path of OH - byproducts.