Atomically Dispersed Chromium Coordinated with Hydroxyl Clusters Enabling Efficient Hydrogen Oxidation on Ruthenium

Overview

Journal Nat Commun

Specialty Biology

Date 2022 Oct 6

PMID 36202856

Authors

Bingxing Zhang

Baohua Zhang

Guoqiang Zhao

Jianmei Wang

Danqing Liu

Yaping Chen

Lixue Xia

Mingxia Gao

Yongfeng Liu

Wenping Sun

Hongge Pan

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Overcoming the sluggish kinetics of alkaline hydrogen oxidation reaction (HOR) is challenging but is of critical importance for practical anion exchange membrane fuel cells. Herein, abundant and efficient interfacial active sites are created on ruthenium (Ru) nanoparticles by anchoring atomically isolated chromium coordinated with hydroxyl clusters (Cr(OH)) for accelerated alkaline HOR. This catalyst system delivers 50-fold enhanced HOR activity with excellent durability and CO anti-poisoning ability via switching the active sites from Ru surface to Cr(OH)-Ru interface. Fundamentally different from the conventional mechanism merely focusing on surface metal sites, the isolated Cr(OH) could provide unique oxygen species for accelerating hydrogen or CO spillover from Ru to Cr(OH). Furthermore, the original oxygen species from Cr(OH) are confirmed to participate in hydrogen oxidation and HO formation. The incorporation of such atomically isolated metal hydroxide clusters in heterostructured catalysts opens up new opportunities for rationally designing advanced electrocatalysts for HOR and other complex electrochemical reactions. This work also highlights the importance of size effect of co-catalysts, which should also be paid substantial attention to in the catalysis field.

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