Amorphous Ru nanoclusters onto Co-doped 1D carbon nanocages enables efficient hydrogen evolution catalysis

ABSTRACT The development of high-performance electrocatalysts for hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) is of great significance for green, sustainable, and renewable energy conversion. Herein, we report the synthesis of amorphous Ru clusters on Co-doped defect-rich hollow carbon nanocage (a-Ru@Co-DHC) as an efficient electrocatalyst for HER in the basic media. Due to the advantages such as high surface area, rich edge defect, atomic Co doping and amorphous Ru clusters, the as-made a-Ru@Co-DHC displays an efficient HER performance with a near-zero onset overpotential, a low Tafel slope (62 mV dec−1), a low overpotential of 40 mV at 10 mA cm−2 and high stability, outperforming the commercial Ru nanocrystal/C, commercial Pt/C, and other reported Ru-based catalysts. This work provides a new insight into designing new metal doped carbon nanocages catalysts supported by amorphous nanoclusters for achieving the enhanced electrocatalysis.