Selectively nucleotide-derived RuP on N,P-codoped carbon with engineered mesopores for energy-efficient hydrogen production assisted by hydrazine oxidation

Abstract

Integrating hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) with hydrazine oxidation reaction (HzOR) has an encouraging prospect for the energy-saving hydrogen production, demanding the high-performance bifunctional HER/HzOR electrocatalyst. Ruthenium phosphide/doped carbon composites have exhibited superior activity toward multiple electrocatalytic reactions. To explore the decent water-soluble precursors containing both N and P elements is highly attractive to facilely prepare metal phosphide/doped carbon composites. Herein, as one kind ecofriendly biomolecules, adenine nucleotide was first employed to selectively fabricate the highly pure RuP nanoparticles embedded into porous N,P-codoped carbons (RuP/PNPC) with a straightforward “mix-and-pyrolyze” approach. The newly prepared RuP/PNPC only requires 4.0 and −83.0 mV at 10 mA/cm² separately in alkaline HER and HzOR, outperforming most of reported electrocatalysts, together with the outstanding neutral bifunctional performance. Furthermore, the two-electrode alkaline and neutral overall hydrazine splitting both exhibit significant power-efficiency superiority to the corresponding overall water splitting with the voltage difference of larger than 2 V, which can be also easily driven by the fuel cells and solar cells with considerable H₂ generation. Our report innovates the N- and P-bearing adenine nucleotide to effortlessly synthesize the high-quality RuP/doped carbon composite catalysts, highly potential as a universal platform for metal phosphide-related functional materials.

Keywords

bifunctional electrocatalyst / hydrazine oxidation / hydrogen energy / hydrogen evolution / RuP

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