Bioinspired Construction of Ruthenium-decorated Nitrogen-doped Graphene Aerogel as an Efficient Electrocatalyst for Hydrogen Evolution Reaction

Rational construction of low-cost, efficient, and durable electrocatalysts for the hydrogen evolution reaction(HER) is essential to further develop water electrolysis industry. Inspired by the natural enzyme catalysis with coordination environments of catalytic sites and three-dimensional structures, we construct an efficient Ru-based catalyst anchored on the nitrogen dopant on graphene aerogel(Ru-NGA). The Ru-NGA catalyst exhibits dramatically improved electroactivity and stability towards HER with a near-zero onset overpotential, a low Tafel slope of 32 mV/dec, and a high turnover frequency of 5.5 s−1 at −100 mV. The results show that the electronic modulation of metallic Ru nanoparticles by nitrogen coordination weakens the affinity of Ru towards H and hence facilitates the desorption of hydrogen. This research provides in-depth insights into the fundamental relationship between metallic nanostructure and HER activity, and also guides the rational design of high-performance electrocatalysts in energy conversion.