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The slow hydrogen oxidation reaction (HOR) kinetics under alkaline conditions remain a critical challenge for the practical application of alkaline exchange membrane fuel cells. Herein, Ru/RuO2 in-plane heterostructures are designed with abundant active Ru-RuO2 interface domains as efficient electrocatalysts for the HOR in alkaline media. The experimental and theoretical results demonstrate that interfacial Ru and RuO2 domains at Ru-RuO2 interfaces are the optimal H and OH adsorption sites, respectively, endowing the well-defined Ru(100)/RuO2 (200) interface as the preferential region for fast alkaline hydrogen electrocatalysis. More importantly, the metallic Ru domains become electron deficient due to the strong interaction with RuO2 domains and show substantially improved inoxidizability, which is vital to maintain durable HOR electrocatalytic activity. The optimal Ru/RuO2 heterostructured electrocatalyst exhibits impressive alkaline HOR activity with an exchange current density of 8.86 mA cm-2 and decent durability. The exceptional electrocatalytic performance of Ru/RuO2 in-plane heterostructure can be attributed to the robust and multifunctional Ru-RuO2 interfaces endowed by the unique metal-metal oxide domains.
Zhang et al. (Fri,) studied this question.